MOSCOW. Oct 6 (Interfax) - Turkey's open and unequivocal support for Azerbaijan is a fundamentally new factor influencing the current escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) chief Sergei Naryshkin said.
"There have been clashes on the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh before. The current exacerbation of the situation is especially worrying not only because of its scale, but also because of a fundamentally new influence of external factors. It's the first time Turkey has sided with Azerbaijan so openly and unequivocally," Naryshkin said in a commentary circulated by the SVR press office on Tuesday.
"The intensifying armed confrontation in Karabakh is attracting militants from various international terrorist groups like a magnet," he said.
"Moscow has taken the escalation of tensions around Nagorno-Karabakh with alarm," he said.
"A new war in the region is unacceptable to Russia as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair. We also cannot be indifferent to the fact that Armenian and Azerbaijani people, whom we see as friends, are dying in the hostilities," he said.