Turkey legitimizes its actions in this or that conflict zone of the Middle East with an “anti-terrorist” struggle against Kurdish groups.

Turkey has repeatedly violated the territorial integrity of Syria and Iraq and initiated hostilities in the territories of neigbouring countries based on the manipulation of false thesis of the threat of Kurdish groups living in that countries. Guided by the need to develop and implement an “anti-terrorist” operation against the Kurds, Turkey actually occupied a part of Syria, under the pretext of establishing a security zone.

Erdogan tries to localize the same logic in the direction of the South Caucasus. Still before the hostilities against Artsakh, Turkish media, expert and later social-political circles started circulating news on transferring militants of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, as if to take part in the planned offensive operations against Azerbaijan.

Particularly it was noted that Kurdish groups were transferred from Syria and Iraq. The false thesis on the involvement of Kurdish militants was still being manipulated during the hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in July.

On October 28, during a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Erdogan stated as if 2,000 Kurdish militants are fighting on side of Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh [1]. It’s noteworthy that the official report on the telephone conversation between the presidents of the two countries received from the Russian presidency doesn’t mention that fact. Moreover, based on the report, President Putin himself expressed a deep concern over the ongoing hostilities, as well as the increasingly large-scale involvement of terrorists from the Middle East in clashes [2].

Moscow has repeatedly reaffirmed at the highest level that Turkey has transferred pro-Turkish terrorist groups from Syria and Iraq to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone to participate in the hostilities against Artsakh. Thus, by circulating false thesis of the involvement of Kurdish militants in the activities against Azerbaijan, Erdogan first of all tries to fail and to distort the reality of the involvement of terrorist groups in the hostilities against Artsakh, which was reaffirmed by the international community, at least by the 3 co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group. Secondly, through this false thesis Ankara tries to legitimize the possibility of sending Turkish troops to Azerbaijan, as well as the possibility of Turkey’s direct involvement in hostilities against Artsakh.

It should be noted that this is already the second time Turkey is talking at the highest level about the readiness to send Turkish troops to Azerbaijan. On October 9, the Speaker of the Turkish Parliament Mustafa Sentop stated that against the background of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the country’s legislative body may consider the issue of transferring Turkish troops to Azerbaijan, however there is no need for it. Later on October 21, in an interview with the CNN Turk, Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay reaffirmed Ankara’s readiness to send Turkish troops to Azerbaijan [3].

By manipulating the false thesis of Kurdish militants, Erdogan can prepare grounds for “anti-terrorist” operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone: the logic is as follows, Russia carries out anti-terrorist operations in Syria by neutralizing pro-Turkish terrorist groups and Turkey in response to it, carries out activities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.

In Turkey, this false thesis is also used as a tool to raise pressure on Russia, to withdraw Russia from the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair format and form a new Russian-Turkish bilateral format. This, perhaps, was Ankara’s second direct proposal to Russia during the hostilities against Artsakh: at first time, such a proposal was made by Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu, which wasn’t accepted by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.

Actually, failing the agreements and efforts reached by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries on establishing a ceasefire for the third time, Erdogan strives to force Moscow to sit at the negotiation table on a bilateral format. There is a clear version of the issue in Russia: it is one thing to have a bilateral agreement on the conflict in Syria and in Libya, however completely a different logic works in case of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where Russia has vital interests.

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[1] https://news.ru/world/erdogan-soobshil-putinu-o

[2] http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64289

[3] https://orbeli.am/hy/post/656/2020-10-23/%D4%