[ad_1]
Saturday 3 October 2020
The decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh could take on a whole new dimension. Islamist terrorists from the war zones in Libya and Syria are supposed to earn their living as mercenaries in the South Caucasus. Turkey and Azerbaijan deny the accusations, Russia is concerned.
In the bloody conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, international concern is growing about a conflagration in the South Caucasus with the participation of Islamist terrorists from Syria and Libya. He and French President Emmanuel Macron pointed out the danger, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said after a phone call between the two politicians. Pashinyan had accused Turkey of having relocated thousands of mercenaries from war zones in Syria and Libya to the southern Caucasus.
Azerbaijan and Turkey deny the accusations. However, Russia also announced that it had plausible proof of this. According to information from Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his concern about this fact in a telephone conversation with his Iranian colleague Mohammed Jawad Zarif. Iran is a neighbor of Armenia and Azerbaijan and has offered to mediate in the conflict. Russia has called on the parties to the conflict to immediately withdraw fighters from illegal terrorist groups from the Middle East.
An unmanned aerial vehicle flies over a place where Azerbaijani forces attack Armenian artillery.
(Photo: Picture Alliance / dpa)
If these fighters were true, the decades-long conflict would have a new dimension. There was no strong evidence of the use of mercenaries. The official mediation body between the two former Soviet republics at war is the so-called Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The group called for an immediate end to the fighting and a return to the negotiating table.
Missiles fly over the capital
According to activists, at least 28 pro-Turkish fighters from Syria were killed in the fighting in the disputed Caucasus region. They were among a total of around 850 soldiers Ankara sent to the region to support Azerbaijani troops, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Relatives of three combatants have confirmed his death, reports the AFP news agency. Azerbaijan and Turkey deny having used Syrian fighters in the region.
In a joint statement, US President Donald Trump, French President Macron and Kremlin Chief Putin called on both sides to agree to a ceasefire. While Armenia was open to negotiations, Azerbaijan refused. With the support of Turkey, Azerbaijan stressed several times that it wanted to take the area from Armenia. The oil and gas rich country has improved significantly in recent years and is militarily superior to the completely impoverished Armenia.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had threatened to take the area back militarily if necessary. He criticized that the years of negotiations had not brought progress for his country. Armenia has been complaining about the heavy artillery bombardment of Azerbaijan for about a week and more than 200 deaths in its own ranks and in Nagorno-Karabakh. The capital Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh was also bombarded with rockets on Friday. Homes and infrastructure were destroyed. One person was killed and eleven other residents were injured, authorities said.
Remains of the Soviet Union
The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, regretted that the fight continued after the call of France, the United States and Russia. He called on the parties to the conflict to immediately end all hostilities so that human suffering in the region did not worsen further. The conflict cannot be resolved militarily, but only through dialogue.
The two former Soviet republics have been fighting for decades over the mountainous region, which is home to some 145,000 people. Armenia controls Nagorno-Karabakh, but according to international law it belongs to the Islamic part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan lost control of the area in a war that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union some 30 years ago. Now it is inhabited by Armenian Christians from Karabakh. Since 1994 there has been a fragile ceasefire. Turkey is on the side of Azerbaijan in the conflict, while Armenia sees Russia as a protective power.
