Azerbaijan has the legal right to request Turkish military assistance in Nagorno-Karabakh

Armenia’s Worst Nightmare Might Come True

Armenia and its media surrogates across the world are fearmongering about the scenario of the Turkish military assisting its Azerbaijani allies in their ongoing counteroffensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, rightly recognizing that this would make their country’s worst nightmare come true. Contrary to the claims that this would be an “illegal aggression” on behalf of the Turkish Republic, it would actually be an entirely legal military intervention considering the fact that Azerbaijan has the UN-enshrined right to remove by any means the same Armenian forces from the region that the UNSC already demanded withdraw on four separate occasions (822, 853, 874, 884). So long as these two allied states limit their attacks to removing the Armenian Army from the roughly 20% of Azerbaijani territory that it currently occupies and only strike targets within Armenia’s internationally recognized borders in order to preemptively thwart their imminent aggression against Azerbaijan and/or Turkey, then Armenia’s Russian CSTO ally likely wouldn’t escalate the situation to the brink of war with them.

Background Briefing

Before going any further, it’s important to mention the author’s prior work on this topic in order to point readers in the direction of learning more about his interpretation of the latest events. The relevant articles for them to review are as follows:

* 20 July: “Don’t Fall For The Alt-Media Narrative On Armenia & Azerbaijan”

* 20 July: “Armenia, Azerbaijan Must Immediately Implement The Madrid Principles”

* 4 August: “Armenia’s Risky Tovuz Strategy Dramatically Backfired”

* 21 August: “Why Did Russia Reaffirm Its CSTO Support To Belarus But Not To Armenia?”

* 28 September: “Debunking The Top Five Fake News Narratives About Nagorno-Karabakh”

The gist of these articles is that Armenia has an interest in provoking hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh in order to destabilize Russia’s “balancing” act between it and Azerbaijan, possibly drive a wedge in the Russian-Turkish Strategic Partnership, and advance the US’ grand strategic objective of dividing and ruling this region.

Political Disclaimer

It should go without saying that acknowledging Turkey’s legal right to intervene in Nagorno-Karabakh upon Azerbaijan’s request doesn’t equate to endorsing every single thing that the country or its leaders have ever done. Unfortunately, however, the anti-Azerbaijani infowar (which is a subset of the larger anti-Turkish one) is so intense at the moment that many well-intended people are being misled into thinking that the acceptance of the aforementioned fact somehow “compromises their politics”, especially if they’re critical of Turkish policy towards Iraq, Syria, Cyprus, Greece, and/or Libya. One can recognize the international legality of any potential Turkish military intervention in Nagorno-Karabakh while still supporting Armenian separatists there, condemning Turkish activities in Syria, and disagreeing with Turkey’s interpretation of what several dozen countries including Russia regard as the “Armenian Genocide”. It’s one thing to dislike the four UNSC Resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh and another to act as if they don’t exist, which only propagandists do.

It’s Time To End This Frozen Conflict Once And For All

Returning back to the conflict in question, President Erdogan had a point when he said that“The crisis in the region that started with the occupation of Karabakh must be put to an end.” Indefinitely perpetuating the formerly frozen status of this conflict goes against the will of the UNSC by default. It also creates an even more dangerous geopolitical time bomb that could conceivably be triggered by extra-regional actors such as the US at any given time in order to promote their divide-and-rule interests. With this in mind, it’s time to end this frozen conflict once and for all, which could potentially be achieved through a Turkish military intervention in Nagorno-Karabakh upon Azerbaijan’s request with the intent of implementing the four UNSC Resolutions demanding Armenia’s withdrawal from the occupied regions. That said, Turkey is already tied down in the five earlier mentioned regional conflicts and might not want to risk overextending itself, though it might take a calculated risk if Armenia proves itself to be much weaker than it portrays itself as during the current clashes.

Concluding Thoughts

Whatever one’s personal views are about what the final political status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be or their attitudes towards Azerbaijan and Turkey, everyone should recognize the objectively existing and easily verifiable fact that there are four UNSC Resolutions demanding Armenia’s withdrawal from what those five global leaders regard as its illegal occupation of universally recognized Azerbaijani territory. This endows Baku with the legal right to request Turkish or other foreign military assistance in implementing the four aforementioned resolutions and removing the Armenian Army from its land. It’s everyone’s right to disagree with that global body’s decisions, but no one has the right to act like they never happened or to ignore their legal authority. There’s little that the US, Russia, and China all agree upon in the New Cold War other than the importance of implementing those relevant resolutions, though ideally by peaceful means, which says a lot about the support that Azerbaijan has across the world in regaining control of the remaining fifth of its territory under occupation.