'Everyone Needs To Fight:' Armenian Recruits Flock To Karabakh

A stream of Armenian men -- young and old -- were arriving at an army recruitment centre in Yerevan on Tuesday to enlist for their military's deadly fight with Azerbaijani forces in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.

Some of the recruits walked to the centre through dreary weather wearing sturdy boots and carrying bulging canvas bags, ready to leave for the front as soon as possible.

Several of the men said goodbye to friends and family who had come to see them off.

Hamlet Hovsepyan travelled from Strasbourg in France where he has lived for the past 17 years to join the battle with Azerbaijani forces that has raged for ten straight days and claimed nearly 300 lives.

Holding two passports and his burgundy-coloured military identity card, he admitted to AFP that he has no previous fighting experience.

"But I'm even fine with sweeping floors," he said.

"I will beg them to take me into the army. I'm sure I can be helpful there".

Armenia's long-simmering conflict with Azerbaijan dates to the collapse of the Soviet Union when Armenian separatists in Karabakh broke away from Baku in a conflict that claimed 30,000 lives.

The region is not recognised as independent by any country, not even Armenia, even though Yerevan supports it.

But for Hovsepyan, it is Turkey's disputed role in the conflict that spurred him to join the call to take up arms.

Armenia has accused Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, of shooting down one of its warplanes and of funnelling foreign fighters from Syria and Libya to bolster Azeri forces in Karabakh.

Hovsepyan also pointed to a historic grievance -- the mass murder of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

"We are here to protect our land, the children who are dying there. We are not going to let them do it -- we are not going to let the Turks commit a second genocide," he told AFP.

Clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over Nagorno-Karabakh have escalated for more than a week despite repeated calls from mediators Russia, France and the United States for a ceasefire.

Their efforts at finding a lasting political solution to the conflict have made little progress since a 1994 ceasefire agreement.

Both sides have shown little appetite for a halt to the fighting and for Andranik Ghalajyan, a 47-year-old soldier who had just returned from the front, only military victory would bring about an end to the conflict.

"We are a small nation and we don't have any other alternative but to win. This is why everyone needs to fight," he told AFP.

Recent recruits in military fatigues who were chosen to join the fight chatted and smoked cigarettes while they waited to board buses that would take them to the front lines.

They posed for photos and raised clenched fists before clambering on board where a priest recited prayers and blessed the eager soldiers.

On the journey to Goris near the border with Karabakh, a reserve lieutenant cradled a Kalashnikov machine gun while his travel companions sang patriotic songs and chanted slogans.

"I was at the military office six minutes after I got their call," the reservist who declined to give his name told AFP on the bus. "And I am already here, off to protect my homeland".

Unlike dual-French citizen Hovsepyan who has no conflict experience, 44-year-old Karen Nazaryan told AFP he fought Azerbaijanis during previous escalations.

"We are not afraid of Turkey. We are not afraid of anyone in this world," he said.