From what Al-Jazeera was saying, deployment of Turkish troops is not actually a part of the trilateral agreement between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to end the war in Artsakh.
So what is it?
The spokesperson of Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stated that displaced persons will be allowed to return.
But what mechanisms are there to protect their safety?
Will any of them choose to return given Azeri and Turkish history on ethnic cleansing?
If, as I suspect, few Armenians will choose to return or remain, this agreement is ethnic cleansing via Azeri, Armenian and Russian signatures.
Winners in this?
Undoubtedly Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Russia: will have some sort of military presence in Artsakh (but could have used Azeri violations of UN ceasefires as excuse to do this anyway).
Does this entrench Russian hegemony over southern Caucasus? Remains to be seen.
At least Russia succeeded in not destroying its relations with Azerbaijan.
Armenia will return to the Russian fold despite feeling of betrayal in Artsakh. It has no choice.
Israel: is a winner in that it restricts Iranian outlet to the north and could even destabilize Iran itself through resurgent pan-Turkism. Israel also successfully tested its military hardware through a proxy war.
Iran: loser as above.
Turkey: wins also because some shallow analysts are seeing Turkey as a Russian counter weight. The Turkish apologists can raise their heads in public again after an awful couple of months
Hellenism: loser for obvious reasons. Lesson is to take leaf out of Israeli book - rely on no one, trust no one whilst developing alliances which are themselves by their very nature dynamic and changing.
Returning to my point about Turkish peacekeepers- even if Turkish troops aren’t allowed at demarcation lines, they will be deployed by ‘sovereign’ Azerbaijan.
It is here that I find it difficult to understand Russian acquiescence to Turkish encroachment to its own back yard or ‘near abroad’.
Azerbaijan will have to repay its debt to Turkey in some tangible and substantial way.
Andrew is a PhD student in the United Kingdom.
The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Greek City Times.
