Category: 2020

‘Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh face an existential threat,’ says Armenia’s PM Pashinyan

Kanayan Tamar
France 24 2020
Oct 16 2020

In an interview with FRANCE 24, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan talks about the reignited conflict in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan accuses Turkey of inciting the military campaign, and denounces what he calls an “ethnic cleansing” against the people in the region. “Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are facing an existential threat,” he says, urging the international community to recognise the region’s right to independence.

Watch the interview at the link below

Tbilisi: Aliyev: Weapons Smuggled by Civilian Planes to Armenia

Vanyan Gary
Civil Georgia
Oct 16 2020
16/10/2020 – 19:30

399 1 minute read

“According to the information at our disposal, smuggled weapons were sent from the Georgian territory to Armenia by civilian and cargo planes,” Baku-based Report News Agency quoted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as saying in an interview with Turkish TV channel A Haber on October 16.

Aliyev claimed that “rich Armenian businessmen” living in Russia have purchased an IL-76 plane that is being used to smuggle Russian Armenians as mercenaries in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as anti-tank and air defense weaponry to Armenia.

“I can say that Iran and Georgia have closed the airspace and land roads for the delivery of weapons to Armenia,” Aliyev stated, expressing gratitude to the governments of the two neighboring countries. However, the Azerbaijani leader asserted that the military goods are being declared as civilian cargo and transported illegally.

President Aliyev stated that the Azerbaijani government has addressed the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regarding the matter.

Earlier in October, the National Security Council of Georgia stated that the issuance of permits for transiting military cargo through its territory towards both Azerbaijan and Armenia was suspended as soon as tensions erupted in the Nagorno-Karabakh.

Regardless, Tbilisi has frequently faced accusations of military transit through its territory, with officials denouncing various allegations, such as allowing the transfer of Syrian militants, as well as arms transit to Azerbaijan.

Most recently, deputy FM Lasha Darsalia denounced media reports that military shipments through Georgia are carried out via civil fights as “manipulation of information,” asserting that “the flights taking place in the airspace of Georgia are of humanitarian and civil nature only.”

Evidence mounts of war crimes in Nagorno-Karabakh

Emma Nadirian
OC Media
Oct 16 2020

By Robin Fabbro
A still from a video appearing to show two Armenian captives shortly before they are shot dead.
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A video circulating online appearing to show Azerbaijani forces executing two captives is the latest evidence of war crimes during the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the video, two men bound and draped in the flag of Nagorno-Karabakh are gunned down.

According to an investigation by Bellingcat, the video first appeared on Azerbaijani Telegram channels along with a video appearing to show the two men being captured.

Bellingcat concluded that the videos were likely genuine, and geolocated them to a square in the town of Hadrut, the focus of some of the most intense fighting in recent days.

Bellingcat also speculated based on the uniforms and equipment worn by the Azerbaijani soldiers that they could be members of the special forces.

They also noted that the captured men were likely Armenian combatants.

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) also verified that the video was taken in the same square in Hadrut.

‘The videos were too low-quality to positively identify any of the individuals in the videos, but equipment worn by the men in the video were consistent with what would be expected from soldiers on each respective side’, they wrote.

The Armenian Prosecutor’s Office has denied that the men in the video were combatants. They identified them as 73-year-old B.H. and 25-year-old Y.A. both from the Hadrut region.

Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Gor Abrahamyan said they had opened an investigation.

Azerbaijani officials have claimed that the videos were fake. The Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan has launched an investigation into the incident, but said that ‘according to initial indications, there are reasonable doubts that these videos are fake.’

According to the Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Ombudsman Office, in an earlier incident on 10 October, Azerbaijani forces killed four civilians in Hadrut, including a man with disabilities and his mother. They said that six civilians in Hadrut had been killed in the fighting so far.

No information on prisoners of war held by either side has yet been released.  

Since the war broke out on 27 September, both sides have accused the other of deliberately targetting civilian population centres and infrastructure.

Eighty-one civilians have reportedly been killed so far, 47 in Azerbaijan and 34 on the Armenian side. Hundreds more have been wounded.

In one of the most deadly incidents on 11 October, a missile strike on Ganja, the second-largest city in Azerbaijan, levelled a block of flats killing 10 and injuring 35.

Towns and villages throughout Nagorno-Karabakh have also come under artillery fire. The capital Stepanakert has been the most seriously hit, coming under almost daily bombardment since the fighting broke out.

In a statement on 5 October, Amnesty International confirmed the use of cluster bombs on Stepanakert.

Cluster bombs are a type of weapon that scatter a number of smaller bomblets across a wide area. They are known to have a high failure rate, meaning unexploded bombs can stay active killing civilians for years after their use.

A collapsed building in Stepanakert. Image via Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Defender.

‘Amnesty International’s Crisis Response experts were able to trace the location of the footage to residential areas of Stepanakert, and identified Israeli-made M095 DPICM cluster munitions that appear to have been fired by Azerbaijani forces.’

‘The use of cluster bombs in any circumstances is banned under international humanitarian law, so their use to attack civilian areas is particularly dangerous and will only lead to further deaths and injuries’, said Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s acting Head of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The use of cluster munitions is prohibited by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions. The convention has been signed by 110 countries, though neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan are among them.

 For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.

Photo essay | Armenia rallies

Jagharian Tania
EurasiaNet.org
Oct 16 2020
Photos by Winslow Martin Oct 16, 2020

Volunteers prepare Yerevan’s Yerablur Cemetery for multiple burials a day.

Photographer Winslow Martin has been watching Armenia rally since war with neighboring Azerbaijan restarted on September 27: the mobilizations, volunteer efforts, and funerals.

Fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territories – internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan but populated by ethnic Armenians – is the worst since a ceasefire in 1994. By some accounts, half the civilian population has fled to Armenia.

In Yerevan and surrounding towns, families are housing the refugees as they send their own sons off to war. 

Martin, who has been photographing in Armenia for 21 years, has been impressed with the “spirit of cooperation and unity” he has seen: “food, a place to stay, dentistry, even volunteer gravediggers.”

Though in recent days “people are starting to get really scared, their determination is stronger than sorrow.”

A volunteer says goodbye to his girlfriend and grandmother during a mobilization event in Yerevan.

Veterans from previous wars review volunteers’ qualifications. These men belong to an organization called the Armenian National Army, which helps organize the mobilization. The group should not be confused with the Armed Forces of Armenia, which operate under the Defense Ministry.

In late September, a general tells volunteers that the army does not yet need them at the front lines. They have since departed. Now men in their 40s are being sent into combat.

A refugee from Nagorno-Karabakh shows a video of an explosion on his phone.

Women light candles in Etchmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian church, during a national hour of prayer on October 3.

Catholicos Karekin II, the head of Armenia’s church, offers his blessings in Etchmiadzin during a national hour of prayer on October 3.

People pray in St Sarkis Cathedral in Yerevan.

Yerablur Cemetery

Soldiers stand at attention during a funeral at Yerevan’s Yerablur Cemetery. The military cemetery holds multiple burials every day.

Two refugee boys from Karabakh are living with a family at an apple orchard in Karpy, a village near Ashtarak.

These Karabakh refugees are among 50 families being hosted at a hotel in Ashtarak. Karabakh’s de facto president, Arayik Harutyunyan, appealed to residents on October 15 to return home: “Today our homeland needs our protection more than ever before. First, you have no moral right to leave your homes, grandfathers’ graves, and your children’s future unprotected,” Civilnet quoted Harutyunyan as saying. “Come back before it’s too late, because your actions will be assessed by the people and by history.”

A refugee sorts through clothing donations in the Massis town hall.

At the Astghik Medical Center in Yerevan a woman donates blood for soldiers.

A family in Yerevan celebrates the matriarch’s birthday. In the foreground her daughter speaks about her son on the frontlines.

A military marching band performs during funeral services for fallen servicemen at Yerablur Cemetery.

 

Winslow Martin is a photographer based in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Armenian Americans March for Artsakh in Pasadena

Maral Takmazian
Pasadena Now
Oct 16 2020
By EDDIE RIVERA | Photography by JAMES CARBONE
Published on Friday, | 5:30 am

Hundreds of local Armenian Americans packed Centennial Plaza in front of Pasadena City Hall Thursday evening to protest the recent attacks by Azerbaijan and Turkey on the Artsakh region of Armenia.

The event was organized by a group of Pasadena-area clergy and community organizations that have coalesced to decry the recent violence by staging four days of activism.

Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh, straddles Armenia and Azerbaijan and has been governed as a de facto independent republic controlled by ethnic Armenians since 1991.

The disputed area exploded with violence in the latest outbreak of fighting on Sept. 27.

“We are very upset, because not only are we dealing with war and our countrymen are dying in the hundreds, but we are also dealing with the extreme indignation of a media blackout here in the United States,” said one of the rally organizers, former City Council candidate Boghos Patatian.

Thursday’s crowd, estimated by police to be as many as 600 but described by attendees as in the thousands, heard speeches before moving the short distance westward to the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Old Pasadena’s Memorial Park.

The gathering at City Hall was also attended by a number of local leaders and elected officials, including State Senator Anthony Portantino, PUSD Board Members Roy Boulghourjian and Scott Phelps, and PUSD Board President Patrick Cahalan, along with Mayor Terry Tornek and Councilmember Victor Gordo.

Tornek told the crowd, “We are here in solidarity with you tonight,” and said “the City of Pasadena stands with its Armenian-American community in these difficult times, and mourns for the innocent victims of military aggression.”

Councilmember Victor Gordo emphasized his own immigrant roots, and said, “I know what it’s like to live in the United States and have family elsewhere that you worry about.”

“These are 150,000 people in the historic area of Armenia wanting to live in peace,” said State Senator Anthony Portantino, “And I am proud to stand on the steps of the City Hall in Pasadena to yell as loud as I can, and condemn these actions, and call for the U.S. Government to call the Minsk Group together, to call French peacekeepers, and Russian interests, and come together to make a lasting peace.”

Following the presentation and speeches at City Hall, the group walked south on Garfield to Colorado Boulevard where they proceeded west on Colorado Boulevard, eventually ending up at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Memorial Park, where they heard prayers from Armenian faith leaders.

The newly-formed Pasadena for Artsakh group is planning a series of events through Saturday to bring light to the issue.

The organization is also planning a fundraising dinner at 7 p.m. Friday at the Hovhannes and Hripsime Jivalagian Youth Center, 2242 E. Foothill Blvd.

A town hall meeting on the conflict will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Hovhannes and Hripsime Jivalagian Youth Center, according to Pasadena for Artsakh.

Finally, a car wash and breakfast-to-go event will take place Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., also at the Hovhannes and Hripsime Jivalagian Youth Center.

For more information, Patatian and the Pasadena for Artsakh Leadership Council can be reached at (626) 818-9004.

See also:

Pasadena’s Armenian Community Decries Violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, Calls for U.S. Action

Locals Decry Broken Ceasefire in Armenia, Azerbaijan Conflict

https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/armenian-americans-march-for-artsakh-in-pasadena/

Ottawa: PM Trudeau calls for ‘peaceful resolution’ to Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict

Manouk Vasilian
CTV News
Oct 16 2020

Rachel Aiello Ottawa News Bureau Online Producer

@rachaiello Contact

Published Friday, 11:42AM EDT

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling on “all sides” to find a “peaceful resolution” to the ongoing Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict.

Trudeau said he spoke with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday morning, “to express our concern about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“I told him that Canada will continue to work extremely hard with all our allies to put an end to the violence. I encourage all sides to engage in dialogue to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Trudeau said.

According to a readout of the call from the Prime Minister’s Office, Trudeau “expressed his deep concern regarding the continued fighting and the resulting loss of life, as well as its destabilizing effect in the region,” and implored all parties to engage in mediation efforts.

Trudeau has plans to speak with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later in the day. 

Canada has already halted military export permits to Turkey, and officials are investigating claims that the country was using Canadian technology in the ongoing military action, though Armenians in Canada have called on the government to go further and condemn Turkey’s actions. 

Trudeau said he will “certainly” be discussing the export permit issue with Erdogan. 

“I will express how important it is for Canada and for our allies around the world, that there be a de-escalation of the violence in the region. And, and impress upon Turkey how important it is to encourage people to get back to the table and not continue to participate in the violent conflict ongoing right now,” Trudeau said.  

  • Capital Dispatch: Stay up to date on the latest news from Parliament Hill

“Canada continues to be concerned by the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting in shelling of communities and civilian casualties,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne in a statement at the time that the permits were suspended.

Trudeau said that Champagne, when speaking with allies during a trip to Europe this week, echoed the need for a ceasefire in this revived decades-old fight. The Nagorno-Karabakh region lies within the Azerbaijani border, but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

As The Canadian Press has reported, Champagne also said that a negotiated settlement is the only way to end the shelling by warplanes, drones and artillery that both side alleged have attacked civilians. 

“At a time when the world faces a rapidly changing political and security environment, Canada is more than ever committed to supporting transatlantic cooperation, security, and democratic values. Against a backdrop of regional security concerns… it is more important than ever for Canada to show leadership in supporting democracy, human rights and the rule of law, while promoting peace and stability for all,” said Champagne in a statement concluding his trip abroad.

In this Oct. 13, 2020, file photo, a person stands in a cultural center destroyed by shelling during a military conflict, in Shushi, outside Stepanakert, the capital of the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. (AP Photo/File)

Armenian PM proposes “secession for salvation” formula for Karabakh settlement

Kalashian Nyrie
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 16 2020

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan proposes the “secession for salvation” formula for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

“The principle of “secession for salvation,” which is the modern manifestation of the principle of self-determination of peoples, entitles certain groups, peoples, to secede from any state when there is a risk of discrimination, widespread human rights violations or genocide, and excludes joining a state if the unification can lead to the same consequences as above,” Pashinyan said in a Facebook post.

“In particular, this should be the basis of our concept for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, and the involvement of mercenary terrorists in the current war, the terrorist practices of Turkey and Azerbaijan, provide a real opportunity to achieve such an international understanding,” he said.

“We must focus the potential of all Armenians on the solution of this problem,” PM Pashinyan stated.


Rubble, glass and blood stains: aftermath of Karabakh hospital bombing

Emil Lazarian
CTV News, Canada
Oct 16 2020
Emmanuel Peuchot
                 

AFP Staff        

       

Published Friday, 2:20PM EDT

MARTAKERT, AZERBAIJAN — Shattered window panes, doors ripped off their hinges and a caved-in roof is all that remains of one building in the military hospital complex in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region after recent shelling.

The medical facility was struck this week as part of fierce clashes between Armenian separatists and Azerbaijan forces over the disputed province that erupted late last month.

Witnesses said rockets and cluster bombs hit the hospital near the mostly-abandoned northeast village of Martakert late on Wednesday, ripping through buildings and leaving behind deep craters.

They said the strikes hit just as some wounded soldiers were arriving from the frontlines some 10 kilometres (6 miles).

Gevorg Tadevosyan, who left his work as a doctor in the Armenian capital Yerevan to join the fighting, walks through the main hospital building gesturing to blasted out windows and blood stains on the walls.

“The warning siren started. Some managed to run to the basement, but those who were outside were wounded,” said the 31-year-old, wearing camouflage and with a Kalashnikov assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

A blaze that ignited in the shelling left behind the burnt-out shells of several cars and vans in the hospital parking lot, now coated in a layer of dust and dotted with chunks of rubble and glass shards.

Two blood-stained stretchers were left outside, AFP journalists at the hospital witnessed.

“Everyone was wounded,” recounted Victor Minasyan, surveying the damage the day after the strike.

“Luckily, I avoided serious injuries,” he said, despite visible blood stains on the white bandage around his head.

The 36-year-old driver said he was helping to carry in the newly arrived wounded soldiers when the explosions hit, sending his sense of reality spiralling.

“When I regained consciousness, someone was screaming there, another over there,” he said.

It was impossible to say how many people were injured in the attack or the number of soldiers being treated in the facility when it was struck, he added.

After the bombardment “we quickly transferred the wounded elsewhere”, says Tadevosyan, the doctor and military volunteer who felt compelled to return to his village to defend it when fighting started.

A day later, the abandoned complex was eerily quiet, with just a few cots remaining in emptied wards and several mattresses left on the basement floor.

AFP journalists heard distant echoes of artillery near the hospital, with heavier explosions later sounding from the direction of Azerbaijan.

Karlen Aghabekyan, who lives in one of the small villages near the hospital, described Wednesday’s attack as the worst yet since fighting started nearly three weeks ago.

While showing the damage inflicted on his neighbour’s house several hundred metres from the hospital, the 56-year-old estimated that one cluster bomb that hit the area led to dozens more explosions.

“First the house burned down, then the fire spread to the nearby shed,” he said, shaking his head.

Wearing a beige waistcoat, and carrying an ageing Kalashnikov machine gun, he concedes: “We couldn’t put it out”.

Several wooden beams were still smouldering in the yard of his neighbour’s house, and Aghabekyan paused wearily after locking the gates as explosions sounded in the distance.

“It was the most intensive bombardment we have had in the village,” he said.

PM Trudeau calls for ‘peaceful resolution’ to Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict

Antonian Lara
CTV News, Canada
Oct 16 2020

Rachel Aiello Ottawa News Bureau Online Producer

@rachaiello Contact

Published Friday, 11:42AM EDT

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling on “all sides” to find a “peaceful resolution” to the ongoing Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict.

Trudeau said he spoke with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday morning, “to express our concern about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“I told him that Canada will continue to work extremely hard with all our allies to put an end to the violence. I encourage all sides to engage in dialogue to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Trudeau said.

According to a readout of the call from the Prime Minister’s Office, Trudeau “expressed his deep concern regarding the continued fighting and the resulting loss of life, as well as its destabilizing effect in the region,” and implored all parties to engage in mediation efforts.

Trudeau has plans to speak with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later in the day. 

Canada has already halted military export permits to Turkey, and officials are investigating claims that the country was using Canadian technology in the ongoing military action, though Armenians in Canada have called on the government to go further and condemn Turkey’s actions. 

Trudeau said he will “certainly” be discussing the export permit issue with Erdogan. 

“I will express how important it is for Canada and for our allies around the world, that there be a de-escalation of the violence in the region. And, and impress upon Turkey how important it is to encourage people to get back to the table and not continue to participate in the violent conflict ongoing right now,” Trudeau said.  

  • Capital Dispatch: Stay up to date on the latest news from Parliament Hill

“Canada continues to be concerned by the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting in shelling of communities and civilian casualties,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne in a statement at the time that the permits were suspended.

Trudeau said that Champagne, when speaking with allies during a trip to Europe this week, echoed the need for a ceasefire in this revived decades-old fight. The Nagorno-Karabakh region lies within the Azerbaijani border, but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

As The Canadian Press has reported, Champagne also said that a negotiated settlement is the only way to end the shelling by warplanes, drones and artillery that both side alleged have attacked civilians. 

“At a time when the world faces a rapidly changing political and security environment, Canada is more than ever committed to supporting transatlantic cooperation, security, and democratic values. Against a backdrop of regional security concerns… it is more important than ever for Canada to show leadership in supporting democracy, human rights and the rule of law, while promoting peace and stability for all,” said Champagne in a statement concluding his trip abroad.

Turkey Fuels Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Drones, Mercenaries and Dreams of Imperial Resurgence

Christine Harutyunian
Just Security
Oct 16 2020

[Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Stay tuned for further installments.]

It’s been four years since the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Ertsakh in Armenian) was reignited in 2016. In September of this year, fighting over the disputed territory resumed with a vengeance.

Both sides share the blame for the long-term conflict in a region that has changed hands many times in history. Occupied by the Russians in the early 19th century, it was allotted to the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan by Stalin in the 1920s, even though most of its inhabitants were Armenian. After the Soviet Union disintegrated in the late 1980s, full-scale war erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia, in which some 30,000 were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. A ceasefire was declared in 1994, but since then the conflict flared up a number of times. In several of these bouts of fighting, Armenians were cited for attempts at ethnic cleansing.

In 2016, Azeri forces renewed their attack, this time with Turkey’s clear encouragement, and the two armies have since been locked in sporadic warfare that recently became much more intense. Several countries in the region have sided with Azerbaijan, including, weirdly, Iran and Israel, which (reportedly) supplied arms and materiel, but Turkey’s involvement in the fighting is on a much bigger scale.

Turkey’s wide-ranging political and military support for the Azeri attack reflects President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s bellicose approach to solving problems in the region. In recent years, Turkey invaded Syria, ostensibly to fight against anti-Turkish Kurdish militias there; has conducted frequent bombing strikes against Kurds in Northern Iraq; has actively supported one side in the Libyan civil war; and is on the verge of war with Greece and Cyprus over oil- and gas-drilling prospects in the Mediterranean and over islands in the Aegean.

Erdoğan has expressed anger at Greek sovereignty over the Aegean islands that were once governed from Istanbul; at Bashar al-Assad’s disastrous control of Syria; at Egypt’s struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood; and at Israel’s illegal occupation of Jerusalem. This, he claimed numerous times, stems from the downward spiral that the region has experienced since the great days of the Ottoman Empire. Despite runaway inflation, a rapidly tanking economy, and Erdoğan’s growing authoritarianism, this kind of talk has garnered mass support for him and his government among the more conservative and even secular nationalist groups in Turkey.

Turkish warfare in Nagorno-Karabakh is a weird mixture of tactics. On the one hand, Turkey sent in thousands of Syrian mercenaries whose salaries it pays. Most of them participated in the Syrian uprising against Assad’s regime over the previous decade under Islamic, mostly jihadi, organizations. Some may still hold on to their Salafi beliefs but have since become soldiers of fortune, fighting for the highest bidder. Some of them are fighting for Turkey in Syria; others were sent to Libya, and the rest are doing Turkey’s work in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Alongside these mercenaries, Turkey uses state-of-the-art drone formations. The long years of fighting in the region have led to the deployment of advanced air-defense systems against rockets, but in recent years Turkey has joined the widening club of states who discovered the great potential of drone warfare.

Drone swarms are used for intelligence gathering, pinpointing targets, shooting, and blowing up assets. Nagorno-Karabakh has become a testing site for this new technology. The weapons wreak havoc on Armenian civilian and military sites. The combination of drones and mercenaries, with some back-office military planning, allows Erdogan to conduct operations on three fronts simultaneously, with very limited involvement of Turkish forces.

Under this Turkish aegis, Azerbaijan seeks to scare away its Armenian inhabitants and annex parts of the region. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of civilians and soldiers have already died in this war. The actions of Israel, Iran, and other countries involved in supplying war materials to both sides should be condemned and stopped, but Turkey’s actions require a more serious response.

In recent years, Turkey has stepped up its military actions in the region, bullying its neighbors, betraying its commitment to NATO and its allies in the West, and killing civilians with impunity. If Turkey does not stop its violent actions, the United States and the European Union should impose sanctions, as punishment and as a deterrence to further escalation. This would not be entirely unprecedented, despite Turkey’s status as a member of NATO. The U.S. effectively penalized Turkey last year by suspending it from the multi-nation F-35 fighter jet program and threatening additional sanctions, after Turkey ignored U.S. pressure and opted to buy the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system.

[Readers may also be interested in this Oct. 15, 2019 article by Aurel Sari: “Can Turkey be Expelled from NATO? It’s Legally Possible, Whether or Not Politically Prudent.”]