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In Nagorno-Karabakh, an area about ten times smaller than Switzerland, a long-running conflict has now erupted into open warfare. In battles in the border area between Armenia and Azerbaijan, up to 120 Armenian soldiers have died since Sunday after an offensive by Azerbaijan. Civilians are also among the victims, according to the Red Cross on both sides.
At first glance, the conflict in this small area of the South Caucasus seems far away. But it causes horror all over the world. The President of the Council of the EU, Charles Michel (44), observes the fighting with “great concern”.
Erdogan is involved
There is unease because behind the parties in conflict there are great military powers that are facing each other. One of them is once again Turkey, which is already at the forefront in Syria, Libya and the dispute over gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (66) is said to have transferred to Azerbaijan around a thousand soldiers from the Hamza Brigade, with whom he is fighting the ruler Bashar al-Assad (55), the IS and the Kurds in Syria .
The Nagorno-Karabakh region, controlled by Armenia, belongs under international law to Azerbaijan, which is dominated by Islam. The conflict over the region broke out after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, in which Nagorno-Karabakh held the status of an autonomous region of the USSR. As early as 1992, war broke out in the area, in which around 30,000 people died and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. The ceasefire agreed in 1994 was also repeatedly broken. Guido fields
Azerbaijan denies these accusations. He accuses belligerent Armenia of being behind this “campaign of lies”.
Erdogan has been actively supporting Azerbaijan since the summer at the latest, when Turkey carried out a military exercise with fighter jets, helicopters and artillery units in Azerbaijan. Presumably there are still Turkish weapons and fighters in the country. In any case, yesterday a Turkish plane was also said to have shot down an Armenian plane.
Russia on the other side
Erdogan plays with fire. Because on the other side, as in North Africa, is the powerful enemy Russia. Moscow acts as a protective power in Armenia until 2044 and has around 3,500 soldiers stationed there. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (70) called for an immediate ceasefire.
Erdogan’s provocative approach has several reasons. It is not just gas pipelines that supply Turkey with gas from Azerbaijan. The Turkish president is in the process of expansion and can also use it to divert attention from his internal political problems. Because the issue of Armenia is very emotional in Turkey for historical reasons. Turkey, for example, refuses to recognize the massacre of the Armenian population during the time of the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
That Erdogan is serious about his intervention in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he underlined with a tweet: “Turkey will stand alongside its Azerbaijani brothers.”
Russia has indicated that it is ready to speak and the UN has called a crisis meeting. An attempt is made to prevent the local fire source from becoming an even bigger fire.
