ANKARA, December 29. /TASS/. A general and another 35 officers of the Turkish armed forces will work in the joint center with Russia for monitoring the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced on Tuesday.

"After the construction is over and the joint center is opened, our general and 35 officers will assume their service," the Anadolu news agency quoted the defense minister as saying.

He also confirmed that the Turkish servicemen who would be involved in the work of the Russian-Turkish monitoring center had already left for Azerbaijan.

The Turkish NTV television channel earlier reported about the dispatch of the republic’s servicemen to Azerbaijan. According to the TV channel, the joint Russian-Turkish monitoring center for Karabakh may start operating in January 2021.

On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. The Russian leader said that Azerbaijan and Armenia would maintain the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region.

A memorandum on setting up the joint Russian-Turkish center for monitoring the ceasefire in Karabakh was signed on November 11 following the results of the negotiations via a video link between Hulusi Akar and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.