Turkey’s threats to Armenia are not something new, but the rhetoric has become more radical and aggressive, expert from Hayatsk think-tank Hasmik Vardanyan told Aysor.am.
“The unconditioned assistance voiced by Turkey to Azerbaijan after the tension on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, including in military operations, contains nothing new for Armenia. Ankara assisted Baku in 2016 too when it unleashed war against Artsakh,” she said, stressing that Turkey periodically states about readiness to assist Azerbaijan in any way of settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Referring to the information that Turkey collects rebels in Syria to send to Azerbaijan, the expert said it is quite possible scenario in case of wide-scale military actions on Armenian-Azerbaijani and Artsakh-Azerbaijani borders.
“It is not a secret for anyone that a part of mercenaries fighting in Syrian are under Turkey’s control and after staying without “work” in Syria during the recent period, Turkey is transporting them to other countries, in particular to Libya, to solve its geo-political issues on site. On the background of the neo-ottoman policy carried out by Turkey and the promises given to Azerbaijan, the possibility of appearance of mercenaries from Syria in Azerbaijan is rather high,” Vardanyan said.
She noted that the threats voiced from Turkey are not just theoretical and may become a reality at any moment. The expert stressed that the Armenian diplomacy must consistently work to make it clear for the international community that the security threats Armenia faces from Turkey are real.
“Armenia must be actively engaged in the campaign of the countries fighting against Turkey’s destabilizing actions. We have demonstrated such activeness in Greek and Cypriot anti-Turkish initiatives, but we need to cooperate with Egypt, United Arab Emirates,” she noted.
“Armenia’s active engagement in anti-Turkish fight of the regional countries will not only make the security challenges coming from Turkey more visible to the world but will promote the boosting of the cooperation of countries engaged in anti-Turkish fight and increasing Armenia’s role in the region,” the expert concluded.