Azerbaijan Strikes Ballistic Missile Sites In Armenia Amid Hadrat Standoff
Nato Allies Square Off - Turkey on one side, France on the other, Russia somewhere in the Mix .... should the US get involved or let Europe sort themselves out.
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict threatens to draw Russia, Turkey into fight
One of Eastern Europe’s longest frozen conflicts has exploded into a hot war in recent days, with clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh killing dozens of people and threatening to drag nearby Turkey and Russia into a direct military confrontation.
While Moscow has long backed Christian Armenia and Ankara has openly supported the largely Muslim Azerbaijan, regional analysts say the situation has grown more complex and dangerous recently amid escalating Turkey-Russia tension on other fronts — from Syria to Libya and the wider Eastern Mediterranean.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has also become increasingly tied to Moscow-Ankara friction over oil and gas pipelines running through the area. And, with the U.S. and the European Union struggling to wield influence, concerns are rising over the prospect of an all-out regional war that could draw in bigger players on both sides.
The Exploitation of Turkish Nationalism in the Armenian-“Azerbaijani” War
As the signal-to-noise ratio decreases in the reporting of events surrounding the September 27 Azerbaijani assault on the Armenian-inhabited region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a much more surreptitious current has received virtually no reporting: Iran. Influential think tanks generate their well-crafted equivocation and prevarication, never really following the evidence, and keeping readers cleverly occupied and furious at claims such as “there have been some reports of Jihadists being recruited by and transported to the region by Turkey,” when it is not only clear they have been recruited, with videos of scores being slaughtered by Armenian forces and transcripts of radio transmissions in Arabic suspiciously ignored.
After last July’s border flare-up, with its display of gross Azerbaijani military incompetence, Turkey proclaimed active support for Azerbaijan. Within days of the flare-up’s subsiding, Turkey began war games in Azerbaijan on Armenia’s borders. Turkey never brought home its advisors, trainers, or equipment. Turkey actively recruited and transported Libyan and Syrian Jihadists over Georgian airspace into Azerbaijan to act as cannon fodder in place of Azerbaijan soldiers. One need only peruse flightradar24’s archives to verify this activity. Turkey’s F-16s and AWACS have participated in fighting Armenians. On September 30, the Turkish military assumed control of Azerbaijan’s Air Force. On October 10, an elite force of some two hundred Turkish soldiers attacked an Armenian town many hours after the recent humanitarian cease-fire was to have commenced. Turkish soldiers are embedded within the Azerbaijani army and its command and control.
Rather than deter Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman designs, some regional and world powers appear to have used his Nazi-like dreams in their own interests. Just as Jihadists that are fighting against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad can be useful idiots in the short-term, Turkey has been directly encouraged twice to increase its recent expansionist actions. The first was when US President Trump gave Erdogan the green light to enter Northern Syria, which is now under Turkish occupation. The second was when US Secretary of State Pompeo described the current Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict as one over real estate, interpreted by the Turks as another green light. Without even mentioning Turkish actions against Armenians, NATO’s official website posted, “Turkey is a valued NATO Ally” in its report on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s October 5 visit to Turkey. This comes on the heels of Erdogan’s vow, in a July 14 governmental address, “to complete what their ancestors began, this time in the Caucasus,” Erdogan was referring to the 1915 Turkish genocide of the Armenians.
Nato Allies Square Off - Turkey on one side, France on the other, Russia somewhere in the Mix .... should the US get involved or let Europe sort themselves out.
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict threatens to draw Russia, Turkey into fight
One of Eastern Europe’s longest frozen conflicts has exploded into a hot war in recent days, with clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh killing dozens of people and threatening to drag nearby Turkey and Russia into a direct military confrontation.
While Moscow has long backed Christian Armenia and Ankara has openly supported the largely Muslim Azerbaijan, regional analysts say the situation has grown more complex and dangerous recently amid escalating Turkey-Russia tension on other fronts — from Syria to Libya and the wider Eastern Mediterranean.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has also become increasingly tied to Moscow-Ankara friction over oil and gas pipelines running through the area. And, with the U.S. and the European Union struggling to wield influence, concerns are rising over the prospect of an all-out regional war that could draw in bigger players on both sides.
The Exploitation of Turkish Nationalism in the Armenian-“Azerbaijani” War
As the signal-to-noise ratio decreases in the reporting of events surrounding the September 27 Azerbaijani assault on the Armenian-inhabited region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a much more surreptitious current has received virtually no reporting: Iran. Influential think tanks generate their well-crafted equivocation and prevarication, never really following the evidence, and keeping readers cleverly occupied and furious at claims such as “there have been some reports of Jihadists being recruited by and transported to the region by Turkey,” when it is not only clear they have been recruited, with videos of scores being slaughtered by Armenian forces and transcripts of radio transmissions in Arabic suspiciously ignored.
After last July’s border flare-up, with its display of gross Azerbaijani military incompetence, Turkey proclaimed active support for Azerbaijan. Within days of the flare-up’s subsiding, Turkey began war games in Azerbaijan on Armenia’s borders. Turkey never brought home its advisors, trainers, or equipment. Turkey actively recruited and transported Libyan and Syrian Jihadists over Georgian airspace into Azerbaijan to act as cannon fodder in place of Azerbaijan soldiers. One need only peruse flightradar24’s archives to verify this activity. Turkey’s F-16s and AWACS have participated in fighting Armenians. On September 30, the Turkish military assumed control of Azerbaijan’s Air Force. On October 10, an elite force of some two hundred Turkish soldiers attacked an Armenian town many hours after the recent humanitarian cease-fire was to have commenced. Turkish soldiers are embedded within the Azerbaijani army and its command and control.
Rather than deter Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman designs, some regional and world powers appear to have used his Nazi-like dreams in their own interests. Just as Jihadists that are fighting against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad can be useful idiots in the short-term, Turkey has been directly encouraged twice to increase its recent expansionist actions. The first was when US President Trump gave Erdogan the green light to enter Northern Syria, which is now under Turkish occupation. The second was when US Secretary of State Pompeo described the current Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict as one over real estate, interpreted by the Turks as another green light. Without even mentioning Turkish actions against Armenians, NATO’s official website posted, “Turkey is a valued NATO Ally” in its report on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s October 5 visit to Turkey. This comes on the heels of Erdogan’s vow, in a July 14 governmental address, “to complete what their ancestors began, this time in the Caucasus,” Erdogan was referring to the 1915 Turkish genocide of the Armenians.