South Caucasus Engaged in Heavy Fighting - Geopolitical Club

LOS ANGELES, September 29, 2020 (Newswire.com) - "September 26: The adversary launched an attack in the direction of #Artsakh. The Defense Army is successfully resisting the attack. The situation is developing operatively and thus information will be summarized and transmitted" - Nikol Pashinyan (Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia)

This post-Soviet legacy conflict refers to the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh that used to be part of Soviet Azerbaijan while being mainly populated by ethnic Armenians. The conflict claimed many lives on both sides for decades.

However, the hostilities of the last three days are the heaviest since the fragile ceasefire was established in 1994, and they are described as war by both the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaderships. The contact line of Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijani is constantly under heavy artillery attack; civilian casualties were also reported.

While both sides have reported action with tanks, military helicopters, and artillery, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia has stated that "Nagorno-Karabakh people are fighting against Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance." According to the Armenian MFA statement, Azerbaijan receives large-scale military-political support from Turkey, that is recruiting and transporting foreign terrorist fighters to Azerbaijan. Armenia's ambassador to Moscow reported on Monday that Turkey had sent around 4,000 fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan and that they were fighting there. These accusations find ground in Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statements that openly back Azerbaijan in this conflict.

Meanwhile, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, blames the Armenian side for engaging Armenian diaspora members in the armed conflict in the disputed territory. The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, called on national consolidation to solve this long-burning issue.

The situation has gained the attention of the international community. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "extremely concerned," urging both sides to stop fighting, while President Donald Trump said the US was seeking to stop the violence. Before the recent events, the last major escalation of the conflict happened in April 2016.

Azerbaijan has never concealed its strategic aim: to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem by force, always maintaining tension at the line of contact and the Armenian-Azerbaijan border. On many occasions, the President of Azerbaijan has condemned the efforts of the Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, aimed at the peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict, thus evidently leading to war. For this purpose, Azerbaijan is also involving foreign powers, including Turkey, who's growing presence in Azerbaijan, and notably in Nakhijevan, is proof of a said policy of Azerbaijan.

"This aggression was planned in advance. Any claim by Azerbaijan of a "counter-attack" is a shameless lie. The announcement of the President of Azerbaijan in the UN General Assembly on September 23 was a "diplomatic green light" for this reckless aggression. It could only be construed as hate speech and was a clear expression of genocidal intentions against the Armenian people" said Eduard Enfiajyan, research specialist of Caucasus at Geopolitical Club.

Karen G.
Email: [email protected]

Source: Geopolitical Club