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Armenia's president has blamed Turkey for provoking conflict between Azerbaijan and the Armenian-backed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus, where deadly clashes over control of the disputed territory have taken place for the past 12 days. Nagorno-Karabakh is a region of Azerbaijan that's populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians.
Turkey's military support for Azerbaijan's efforts to regain control of the territory has unsettled the fragile balance in the region, Armen Sarkissian told the Financial Times in an interview, where he demanded that world powers, including the US, Russia, and Nato, step in to prevent a situation similar to the war in Syria.
The moment that Turkey is excluded from this equation, then you can find a solution to this. Being a member of Nato doesn't mean that you have the right. In fact, you have to restrain yourself. You don't get a green card to go and interfere in third party conflicts. Is Nato happy that Turkey is involved in that scale in Iraq? Is Nato happy that Turkey is involved in Libya? What is a Nato-member state doing in Libya? What is a Nato-member state doing in Azerbaijan, fighting, helping to fight Nagorno-Karabakh?
Explain to me. Because this is not about Nagorno-Karabakh. This is about restructuring the whole geopolitics of the region. And Caucasus is a crossroad. It's very important for everybody, starting from energy, logistics, everything. This war will, again, prove that there's no military solution. People of Nagorno-Karabakh are ready to die fighting for their homeland. So what is the Azeri soldier fighting for? They are fighting for killing Armenians.
But I do agree, we need more pressure from Russia. And I hope there'll be more pressure from Russia. And I hope there'll be more pressure from United States. And we cannot wait here until the US elections will happen. They'll be the same or the new administration. We need more effort to stop this. And the focus of the effort should be Turkey. The moment Turkey is taken off the equation, I think, then we'll be closer to the ceasefire and with the hope of going back to the negotiating table, bringing stability to the region and excluding another 10 times Syria in Caucasus.
Russia, France, and the US have made repeated calls for a ceasefire in the conflict, which dates back to the fall of the Soviet Union. But Turkey has rejected those pleas. And casualties on both sides are mounting as fighting between two entrenched armies heads towards a third week.
