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TAIPEI: Taiwan detected 50 Chinese military aircraft around the island, the defense ministry said Friday, days after a British naval vessel sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

China insists democratic, self-ruled Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring the island under its control.

Beijing has ramped up the deployment of fighter jets and naval vessels around Taiwan in recent years to press its claim of sovereignty, which Taipei rejects.

Taiwan also accuses China of using espionage, cyberattacks and disinformation to weaken its defenses.

Along with the 50 aircraft, six Chinese naval vessels were also detected in the 24 hours to 6:00 a.m. (2200 GMT Thursday), the defense ministry said.

It said in a separate statement that an additional 24 Chinese aircraft including fighters and drones were spotted since 08:50 am Friday.

Among them, 15 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait in conducting air-sea joint training with Chinese naval vessels, the ministry said, adding it “monitored the situation and responded accordingly.”

The latest incursion came after British Royal Navy patrol vessel HMS Spey sailed through the Taiwan Strait on June 18, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Thursday.

The United States and other countries view the 180-kilometer Taiwan Strait as international waters that should be open to all vessels.

The last time a British Navy ship transited the Taiwan Strait was in 2021, when the HMS Richmond, a frigate deployed with Britain’s aircraft carrier strike group, sailed through from Japan to Vietnam.

China strongly condemned Britain at the time and deployed its military to follow the vessel.

In April, Taiwan detected 76 Chinese aircraft and 15 naval vessels around the island, when Beijing conducted live-fire exercises that included simulated strikes aimed at the island’s key ports and energy sites.

The highest number of Chinese aircraft recorded was 153 on October 15, after China staged large-scale military drills in response to Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te’s National Day speech days earlier.

ISTANBUL: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is set to make a rare visit to arch-foe Turkiye on Friday, in what Yerevan has described as a “historic” step toward regional peace.
Armenia and Turkiye have never established formal diplomatic ties, and their shared border has been closed since the 1990s.
Relations are strained over the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — atrocities Yerevan says amount to genocide. Turkiye rejects the label.
Ankara has also backed its close ally, Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan, in its long-running conflict with Armenia.
Pashinyan is visiting Turkiye at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan told reporters.
“This is a historic visit, as it will be the first time a head of the Republic of Armenia visits Turkiye at this level. All regional issues will be discussed,” he said.
“The risks of war (with Azerbaijan) are currently minimal, and we must work to neutralize them. Pashinyan’s visit to Turkiye is a step in that direction.”
An Armenian foreign ministry official told AFP the two leaders will discuss efforts to sign a comprehensive peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the regional fallout from the Iran-Israel conflict.
On Thursday — a day before Pashinyan’s visit — Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev traveled to Turkiye for talks with Erdogan and praised Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance as “a significant factor not only regionally but also globally.”
Erdogan repeated his backing for “the establishment of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
Baku and Yerevan agreed on the text of a peace deal in March, but Baku has since outlined a host of demands — including changes to Armenia’s constitution — before it will sign the document.

Pashinyan has actively sought to normalize relations with both Baku and Ankara.
Earlier this year, he announced Armenia would halt its campaign for international recognition of the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide — a major concession to Turkiye that sparked widespread criticism at home.
Pashinyan has visited Turkiye only once before, for Erdogan’s inauguration in 2023. At the time he was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate the Turkish president on his re-election.
Ankara and Yerevan appointed special envoys in late 2021 to lead a normalization process, a year after Armenia’s defeat in a war with Azerbaijan over then-disputed Karabakh region.
In 2022, Turkiye and Armenia resumed commercial flights after a two-year pause.
A previous attempt to normalize relations — a 2009 accord to open the border — was never ratified by Armenia and was abandoned in 2018.