Author: Elizabeth Jabejian

Control over the mountainous area of Nagorno-Karabakh. Populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians, and aided by the Armenian diaspora, it sits inside Azerbaijani territory, connected to Armenia proper by a costly highway. It is heavily militarized and its forces have been backed by Armenia, which has a security alliance with Russia. Azerbaijan has long claimed it will retake the territory, which is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani. Control over the area has become a point of nationalist — almost existential — pride in both countries.
It’s unclear what started this latest escalation. Azerbaijan says Armenia provoked them with aggression. Armenia says Azerbaijani forces attacked. Tensions have risen since July, when several days of clashes rocked the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. These clashes killed 11 Azerbaijani soldiers and one civilian, Azerbaijan said, and prompted tens of thousands of protesters to take to the streets of Baku, demanding the region’s recapture. Turkey, seeking an enhanced regional role and an ally of the ethnically Turkic Azerbaijanis, has been offering support — perhaps military — and loudly backed Azerbaijan’s claims.
The normal rhythm of this conflict would anticipate diplomacy to rush in and calm the guns after 48 hours of blood-letting. But that hasn’t happened yet, and the opposite is fast becoming true. Armenia declared martial law Sunday and mobilized all its forces. Azerbaijan followed with martial law Sunday, and partial mobilization Monday.
Baku has long said it would retake the area and has oil riches to spend on forces to achieve those same ends. The conflict is so overlooked and little-known in the outside world, that some speculate the fighting may spiral out of control, with Washington too distracted and inward-looking to muster its full diplomatic might to stop it. The US has had a deputy secretary of state call both sides to “urge both sides to cease hostilities immediately,” and President Donald Trump has said “we’ll see if we can stop it.”
Again, Turkey and Russia find themselves on opposing sides of a febrile front line. Like in Syria and Libya, their proxies — mercenaries or allied armies — are battling for control of parts of a Middle East, or Caucasus, where a lighter US footprint has imbalanced the delicate distribution of power. Turkey has been particularly effusive in its encouragement of Azerbaijan, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying on Twitter that Armenia has “once again proven that it is the biggest threat to peace and serenity in the region. The Turkish nation continues to stand by its Azerbaijani brothers and sisters with all its means, as it has always done.”
The Kremlin has been a calmer force, with President Vladimir Putin calling Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and noting “it is important now to take all necessary efforts to prevent a military escalation of the confrontation, and most importantly — to stop military operations.” But Moscow is a long-term supporter of Armenia, in weapons and diplomacy, and will be unlikely to tolerate Turkey imposing its will in its former Soviet area of influence. Putin also has a good relationship with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
But enmity is building, given the ongoing violence in Syria, where Turkish-backed Syrian fighters are pushing against Moscow’s ally, the Syrian regime. Similar tensions are growing in Libya, where Turkey is backing the Tripoli-based government with Syrian mercenaries, and Russia has sent Wagner mercenaries, according to US officials, to assist rival forces that control the East. Both Moscow and Ankara seem to spy an opening in Washington’s disinterest in being the regional superpower, and Nagorny-Karabakh is the latest, longest-contested, least-expected venue for this clash to play out.
Everyone wants calm, but nobody on the front Iines is listening yet. NATO has said both “sides should immediately cease hostilities,” and added “there is no military solution to this conflict.” The EU demanded an “immediate cessation of hostilities, de-escalation and for strict observance of the ceasefire” that had been coordinated by the OSCE’s Minsk Group.
Yet four years of Trump’s disengagement, the pandemic, Russia’s increased confidence and Turkey’s bold regional posturing have created a new dynamic where the old norms can be discarded and destructive opportunities sought. Even if diplomacy suddenly shuts the fighting down in the coming hours, the renewed vigor of rhetoric on both sides means this could flare up again soon.

As fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis continued for a second day, Armenian officials accused Turkey of directly intervening in the conflict by supplying weaponry and soldiers. Turkish officials and media, meanwhile, continued to loudly cheer on the Azerbaijani military offensive with unprecedented enthusiasm.

Several officials from Armenia and the Armenia-backed de facto Nagorno Karabakh Republic have directly accused Turkey of supplying weapons and of bringing in militia groups to support the Azerbaijani offensive.

“Turkish military experts are fighting side by side with Azerbaijan, who are using the Turkish weapons, including UAVs and warplanes,” the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a September 28 statement. “According to credible sources, Turkey is recruiting and transporting foreign terrorist fighters to Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Turkey provides full political and propaganda support to Azerbaijan at the highest level of its leadership.”

The fighting is the heaviest between Armenia and Azerbaijan in several years. At least 59 have been killed on the Armenian side, according to official data. There is no official casualty data from the Azerbaijani side but independent sources have counted at least 11 killed there. There have been claims and counterclaims about some positions being captured and retaken, but for now those allegations remain deep in the fog of war.

There is no confirmation yet of concrete Turkish military personnel or materiel in the fighting. Azerbaijani officials have denied the claims.

Turkey has long backed Azerbaijan, but the support has been mostly limited to the moral variety. Following the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in July – until now, the heaviest fighting in years – Turkey made vague promises about helping to arm Azerbaijan, but it’s not known if anything has come of that.

Turkish involvement in the conflict would bring obvious advantages on the ground, as it has far more military capabilities than either Azerbaijan or Armenia. But it would come at a deep cost in the international information war.

Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is globally notorious as an aggressive bully. And a Turkish military intervention against Armenia would create an inevitable, ugly resonance with the 1915 genocide of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

The accusations from Armenian officials have been various. The de facto leader of Karabakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, said that Turkish F-16 fighter jets had remained in Azerbaijan following joint military exercises between the two countries this summer and that “they are still being used.”

A spokesman for Harutyunyan, Vahram Poghosyan, said that the Azerbaijani forces were “comprised of Turkish and various terrorist groups.” Armenia’s ambassador to Moscow, Vardan Toghanyan, said that “we have information that recently Turkey has transported nearly 4,000 militants from Syria to Azerbaijan. They are being trained at militant camps and transported there.”

None of these allegations have been confirmed and many, if not all, will turn out ultimately to be false. (The allegations about Syrian militants, too, came following Azerbaijan and Turkey’s own – similarly unconfirmed – claims about Armenia importing Kurdish militants to help them launch an offensive against Azerbaijan.)

What has been undeniable, however, is a hitherto unseen level of pro-Azerbaijan jingoism in the Turkish government and press.

Following the latest violence, while the rest of the international community called on both sides to stop the fighting, Turkey was a conspicuous exception. “Armenia once again showed that it is the biggest threat to peace and tranquility in the region,” tweeted Erdoğan. “As always, the Turkish nation stands by its Azerbaijani brothers with all its capabilities.”

Erdoğan, as well as Turkey’s foreign minister and defense minister, all spoke by phone with their Azerbaijani counterparts the day the fighting broke out.

“The biggest obstacle in front of peace and stability in the Caucasus is Armenia’s aggression,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar wrote on Twitter.

The Turkish press has been saturated with stories about the conflict. At one point in the afternoon of September 24, the top four stories on the pro-government Turkish tabloid Yeni Şafak were about the fighting. “Armenia butchered these dear children,” went one tag on the homepage, in a story about five civilian members of a family that Azerbaijan reported killed by Armenian fire.

The Turkish Defense Ministry changed its Twitter cover photo to one of a Turkish and Azerbaijani soldier clasping hands, with their respective flags in the background.

The support for Azerbaijan was not limited to traditionally nationalist circles. The soccer club Beşiktaş, whose fans are famous for their leftist politics, tweeted the traditional Turkish-Azerbaijani slogan “One people, two states” with flags of both countries. “We are always beside you, dear Azerbaijan.”

Voices in Turkey calling for peace were rare.

“There is a massive conflict going on between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Karabakh,” wrote Garo Paylan, an ethnic Armenian member of the Turkish parliament, on Facebook. “Our country must stop being the one to fuel this fire. There is no winner of this war, but the losers will be the Armenian and Azerbaijani people.”