By Theodore Shoebat

The government of Turkey recently made the message to Armenia, that the Armenians will pay for striking the Azerbaijani city of Ganja, as we read in a report from Anadolu Press:

Armenia will pay for its terrible attacks on civilians in neighboring Azerbaijan, Turkey’s defense chief said on Monday.

“Sadly, they have attacked the city of Ganja and many other residential areas. This is a clear violation of the cease-fire,” said Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, attending the opening ceremony for the school year at the National Defense University.

“This constitutes a violation of the cease-fire. However, they carry on their attacks undeterred. One day they will be held responsible before history and international law for all this,” said Akar in the capital Ankara alongside the top brass of the Turkish Armed Forces.

The opening speech of the ceremony had been delivered by Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Turkey, Khazar Ibrahim, in what Akar said symbolized the nature and extent of brotherly relations between the two countries.

Given that Turkey is pursuing empire and working to control its former territory in the South Caucasus, and given that Turkey has conspired in the past to exasperate tensions (such as with Syria), it is obvious that Turkey does not want this conflict to end, for as long as it continues, Turkey has a reason to intervene and thus deepen its geopolitical leverage in the region. While Armenia did strike Ganja, it is also true that Azerbaijan numerous times bombed civilian areas in Stepanakurt in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan will argue that since Nagorno-Karabakh is part of its country, that it has a right to bomb that area, but since the region is mainly inhabited by Armenians who consider themselves as part of Armenia, Yerevan is most definitely laying claim to the position of protector of Armenians.

In the end, this is a war that benefits Turkey and Russia as both can capitalize on the conflict to impose their own interests on their satellite countries, with Russia pressuring Armenia to side closer to the Russian zone of influence and Turkey embedding Azerbaijan into the Turkish hegemony.