Since Sunday, Nagorno-Karabakh has once again been at the center of a power play.

This territory the size of Lebanon in the heart of the Zangezur mountains of the southern Caucasus has been at the center of a dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan for more than a century.

Traditional support of Baku, Ankara seems to want to interfere in the conflict despite warnings from Russia, guarantor of peace in the region.

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Russia is the inescapable power in the Caucasus.

While it maintains closer relations with Armenia than with Azerbaijan, it sells arms to both.

Yerevan remains its privileged ally, Armenia having joined political, economic and military alliances dominated by Moscow, in particular the Organization of the collective security treaty.

And for thirty years, Russia, a member alongside France and the United States of the Minsk group, has intervened to put an end to the outbreaks of violence, as in 2016, during the "four-day war" which made a hundred dead.

Turkey in a show of power

Since Nagorno-Karabakh unilaterally proclaimed its independence from Azerbaijan in 1991, with the support of Armenia, no negotiations by the Minsk group have been successful.

A status quo which Russia accommodates, but which is challenged by Turkey.

The Turkish president wants Ankara to have a diplomatic role in resolving this crisis: "Recent developments give all stakeholders in the region an opportunity to present realistic and fair solutions," said Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

With the outbreak of the conflict, Sunday, September 27, between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, the Turkish president did not wait to recall the failure of the international community to find a solution.

Speaking from Istanbul the day after the first fighting, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said it was time for Azerbaijan "to take matters into their own hands, whether they like it or not".

"Alongside our brothers"

As of this summer, Ankara increased its involvement in this conflict by supporting Azerbaijan, a Turkish-speaking country.

In early August, Azerbaijan and Turkey launched two weeks of joint military exercises in fields as diverse as artillery and air defense.

For the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research and analysis institute, it is "the largest of its kind in the recent history of military cooperation between the two countries."

Senior Azerbaijani defense officials also visited Turkey, where Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said: "The whole world should know that the relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan are those of two countries, but one people. "

At the end of August, it was the turn of the Turkish Minister of Defense to go to Baku, where he met President Ilham Aliyev, to whom he assured that "in the struggle of Azerbaijan for the liberation of its occupied lands, the Turkey and its 83 million inhabitants will stand alongside its brothers. "

"The Turkey of 2020 is different from the Turkey of the 1990s. At that time, Turkey was not able to participate militarily in this conflict. Now, the Turkish leaders are more peremptory and claim that they will support Azerbaijan if Azerbaijan is asking for it, "explains Torniké Gordadze, of Sciences Po in Paris, during a debate on France 24." It is a combination of internal and external factors. Turkey is now much more proactive and does not hesitate to send military forces abroad - we've seen them in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. "

Turkey wants to return to the international stage

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is continuing his strategy of returning Turkey to the forefront of international powers. 

Thus, in recent years, Turkey has imposed itself in several areas: in northeastern Syria, in Iraq to fight against the Kurdish militias, in the Libyan civil war.

More recently, Turkish forces clashed with Greece in a conflict over drilling in the eastern Mediterranean.

THE DEBATE - TURKEY: THE WARS IN ERDOGAN

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In recent months, the Turkish president has also focused his criticism on France, once a model of inspiration for Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, but now mocked by Islamists in the ruling AKP.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan goes so far as to challenge France in his backyard in West Africa, where Ankara is extending its influence.

For Laurence Broers of the Chatham House Institute, based in London, "what we are seeing is explicit and increased Turkish support," he said during this debate on France 24. We are witnessing a change in relations between [the Turkey and Azerbaijan] with exchanges and meetings between Defense officials of the two countries. I think Turkey may see this [Nagorno-Karabakh] conflict as another regional theater where it can increase its influence. on the international scene. And the opportunity to demonstrate its military equipment, since developing it is a national imperative. "

The most important issues for Russia

However, Laurence Broers stresses that this new posture does not mean that Turkey "seeks to become more actively involved or would seek a direct confrontation with Russia".

"These are more warnings than direct commitments. Turkey wants to keep the possibility of denying having soldiers on the ground," she explains.

Ankara remains a newcomer in relation to Russia in the South Caucasus and for Laurence Broers, it is Moscow which has the cards in hand to resolve the latest conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The stakes [are] much higher for Russia, because Moscow's main source of influence in the South Caucasus is the unresolved nature of this conflict," he explains.

Especially since Russia would inevitably be involved in any conflict in the region.

"Russia is the only outside power with treaty obligations in the event of war. So it is perhaps the outside power that is most invested in avoiding large-scale conflict."

Moscow has criticized Ankara in recent days for "adding fuel to the fire" by encouraging Baku in its offensive.

And Wednesday evening, without pointing the finger directly at Turkey, Russian diplomacy said it was "very concerned" about the deployment in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of "foreign terrorists and mercenaries" from "Syria and Libya", two areas where Ankara is militarily active with its local allies.

Azerbaijan and Turkey denied, turning the accusation against Yerevan.

Ankara's military interference has not been established, only Armenia claims it so far and accuses Turkey of having deployed its F-16 planes, of providing drone pilots and military specialists.

A direct Turkish military intervention would constitute a major turning point and an internationalization of the conflict, a possible catastrophic scenario, in a region where many powers are already in competition.

Adapted from the English by Romain Houeix.

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