⁍ Any such incident would mark a potentially major escalation of conflict in the South Caucasus region.

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⁍ Turkey is a close ally of Azerbaijan, which is fighting ethnic Armenian forces in a major new flare-up of a decades-old conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

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– Armenia says a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down an Armenian warplane over Armenian airspace today, killing the pilot, Reuters reports. Armenia’s defense ministry says the Sukhoi Su-25 warplane was on a military assignment when it was shot down. “Armenia should withdraw from the territories under its occupation instead of resorting to cheap propaganda tricks,” said a Turkish official. Turkey is a close ally of Azerbaijan, which is fighting ethnic Armenian forces in a major new flare-up of a decades-old conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. An Armenian defense ministry spokeswoman said the Armenian Sukhoi Su-25 warplane had been on a military assignment when it was downed by an F-16 fighter jet owned by the Turkish air force. Turkey’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said: “Armenia should withdraw from the territories under its occupation instead of resorting to cheap propaganda tricks.” Azerbaijan’s defense ministry also denied that a Turkish fighter jet had shot down an Armenian plane. Dozens of people have been reported killed and hundreds wounded since clashes between Azerbaijan and its ethnic Armenian mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh broke out on Sunday, quickly escalating into the worst fighting since the 1990s. Nagorno-Karabakh is a breakaway region that is inside Azerbaijan but is run by ethnic Armenians and supported by Armenia. It broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s, but is not recognized by any country as an independent republic.