At the same time, Azerbaijans relationship with NATO also formed the basis for Turkeys military assistance and army-building process. Armenia has also accused Turkey of sending its own military personnel as well as Syrian mercenaries to Azerbaijan which Ankara and Baku both deny. The second one was Azerbaijans participation in the International Security and Assistance Force in Afghanistan under the command of the Turkish armed forces. Sharing a language, though with different dialects, the two countries had a record of military cooperation going back to the 1917 Russian Revolution. But the conflict also comes with risks for Azerbaijan and Turkey. Even if they wanted to stop now, [the Azeri public] would be strongly against it people would demand to continue the war to the end, he told Al Jazeera. Ulgen says support for Azerbaijan currently enjoys wide public support within Turkey, including from the main opposition, especially as Turkey does not seem to be directly involved in the fighting.

Meanwhile, Armenia held a conference in August to mark the 100thanniversary of the Treaty of Sevres an enduring source of anger in Turkey which had aimed to partition the Ottoman Empire and allow for a larger Armenia, but was superseded by the Lausanne Treaty that established the borders of the modern Turkish Republic. Turkey could further damage its international standing and weaken its hand in any negotiations if the fighting drags on and if Ankara is seen to be fanning the flames of a conflict in which growing numbers of civilians and young conscripts on both sides are being maimed and killed. Soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Turkey began building Azerbaijans armed forces, along with those several other former Soviet republics. Unluhisarcikli said Moscow maintains immense logistical and political advantages over Ankara in the Caucuses. Azerbaijans recent victory against Armenia was the result of this thirty-year effort. Carl von Clausewitzs seminal book, On War, presents two issues, friction and the fog of war, that necessitate, for the sake of military victory, highly trained personnel and a perfectly harmonized command structure. The sales include sophisticated Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2armed drones. Clausewitz described these factors as friction and the environment of such uncertainty as the fog of war. According to him, the party with the greater capacity for eliminating these factors gains advantage in a war. Its Black Sea policies and military support constitute a robust example of its capacity to contribute to transatlantic cooperation. The transformation of the Azerbaijan armed forces is just one example. More recently, oil-rich countries that import the most advanced weapon systems have not demonstrated any significant success in military conflict. Svante E Cornell, director of the American Foreign Policy Councils Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, told Al Jazeera that Azerbaijan and Turkey regard Armenias nationalistic and more pro-western Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to be more of a threat than his predecessors. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Therefore, the military school Turkey is using to help others rebuild their armies is one it acquired earlier through the transatlantic alliance. At the end of this, Russia will broker and dictate the peace terms. To date, more than 1,000 people have been killed, including dozens of citizens on both sides. Ratified in the Turkish Parliament the following year, it was implemented vigorously. Yet wars are always loaded with the risk of unintended consequences and miscalculations. Azerbaijan began its relationship with NATO in 1992 by becoming a member of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council.

It co-founded and continues to advise military academies in Afghanistan, Georgia, and Somalia, in addition to Azerbaijan. The most significant support Turkey is extending is in terms of rhetoric and moral support, Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States office in Ankara, told Al Jazeera. Turkey and Azerbaijan have strong economic, military, cultural and linguistic ties. While its defense industry is a significant supplier to Azerbaijans armed forces, Turkey is far from being the largest one. The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended on November 10, 2020 with the former acknowledging defeat. Turkey has also strongly supported the membership of two other Black Sea countries, Bulgaria and Romania, in NATO. Ultimately this has made a difference, given that this time around clearly Azerbaijans military units have performed vastly better than on past occasions.. Turkeys most significant contribution to Azerbaijans victory in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was neither the drones it supplied nor the military advisors it allegedly provided, but three decades of meticulous army building. They also appear to be technologically superior to some of Armenias ageing Russian military hardware and present a serious threat to Armenias reliance on trenches and conventional means of defence. Over the course of three decades, the traditions of strict discipline and obedience in the Turkish armed forces overtook the former Soviet influence on the Azerbaijani army, with the education and training process led by the Turkish land forces replicated by the navy and air force as well. In recent years, Turkey has intervened militarily in Syria, Libya, and northern Iraq, and has pursued a more assertive approach in a dispute with Greece and Cyprus over energy rights and maritime borders in the eastern Mediterranean. That is to say, even if an army is well-equipped a lack of highly trained and precisely commanded troops could prevent it to reach its goals during a conflict. Within the framework of this agreement, cadets, young officers, and mid-level command staff of Azerbaijans armed forces would receive an education at the Turkish Military Academy, the Turkish War Academy, the Glhane Military Medical Academy, and the non-commissioned officer schools. Turkey has also called for a truce,butit has struck a different tone. Many within the party support Azerbaijan and consider the geopolitics of the Caucuses and the Black Sea as high priorities. Cornell said Russia is wary of losing influence in Azerbaijan now that it has such staunch Turkish backing. It chose the latter, not least because of Turkeys offer to help. German Marshall Fund 2022. Ankaras vocal and fervent support for Baku has angered Western nations, who have accused it of adding fuel to a dangerous conflict. Turkey was for a long time the object of army-building by others. There is an additional significant factor. Cavid Aga, an Azeri analyst and writer based in Ankara, said Azerbaijans gains on the battlefield have generated a sense of momentum and heightened expectations among the Azeri public that will be hard to ignore. In July, after fighting broke out between Azeri and Armenian forces north of Nagorno-Karabakh close to gas pipelines, Turkey pledged unconditional backing to Azerbaijan. Armenia calls the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the late Ottoman period a genocide, which Turkey refutes.

Ulgen said that the transfer of Turkish military expertise in recent years has been a major factor in Azerbaijans apparent battlefield gains. Ithas been the subject of several UN resolutions calling for an end to the occupation of Azeri lands. This requires advanced human capital and organizational capacity, both of which are the result of meticulous training. Meanwhile, Turkeys arms sales to Azerbaijan have increasedsixfoldthis year. Cornell says Azerbaijans President Ilhan Aliyev surely understands the red lines that could trigger a Russian reaction. He is definitely a much more cautious person than the Turkish leadership, which makes me think that he is going to stop before the Turks think he should stop, Cornell said. Ankara sees the OSCE Minsk mediation group as being co-chaired ineffectively by Russia, France, and the United States. Azerbaijan is crucial for Turkeys energy security and is a major investor in theailingTurkish economy. Erdogan has invoked the saying that the countries are one nation, two states. Since the end of Cold War, Turkey has provided military and non-military assistance to more than thirty states in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Africa as part of bilateral or multilateral arrangements. Accordingly, Turkey continues to fulfill its responsibility to export NATO standards in its region and its army-building efforts in Azerbaijan should be seen in this perspective. Meanwhile, the AKPs current foreign policy has shifted from the no problems with neighbours soft power approach it pursued in the early to mid-years of its rule. If Moscow activates its defence pact with Armenia and intervenes militarily on its behalf it would raise the prospect of a direct Turkish intervention and a confrontation between Turkey and Russia that neither country wants. Later, it joined the Partnership for Peace Program and developed an Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO. The role Turkey played in Azerbaijan demonstrates not only its army-building capacity, but also its potential to further contribute to the transatlantic alliance in its region and beyond. Azerbaijans participation in NATOs operation in Kosovo under Turkish military command at the end of the 1990s was an important turning point for its partnership with NATO. During and soon after the Second World War Turkey adopted U.S. military education and its armed forces were rapidly modernized by the United States, first bilaterally and then through NATO, after it became a member. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Azerbaijans independence, two states, one nation became a motto for a close relationship between the two countries. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory, including by Armenia, but is dominated by ethnic Armenians who broke away from Baku in a war in the 1990s. Moreover, superior weapons and equipment alone do not win wars. Turkey stands with and will continue to stand with friendly and brotherly Azerbaijan with all our means and all our heart, Erdogan said. Turkey trains officers in the Azeri armed forces and it has become Azerbaijans third-largest supplier of weapons after Israel and Russia Moscow arms both Armenia and Azerbaijan, despite having a defence pact with Yerevan. On October 22, Azerbaijan said it had driven out Armenian forces to take full control of its border with Iran. Azerbaijan may have decided that with full Turkish backing and Russia unlikely to stand in its way it was the right time to press its military superiority, according to Cornell. In 1918, the Ottoman military assisted Azerbaijans independence efforts. Even if it wanted to at some point, Turkey may not have enough sway over Azerbaijan to halt its military offensive. ", "Karabakh: Georgia Says Not Responsible for Civilian Flights", "Serbia is Playing With Fire, Delivering Arms to Armenia | Balkan Insight", "Serbian government first flaunts, then denies having sold weapons to both Armenia and Azerbaijan", Interview with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Law on Abolishment of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, 2012 ArmenianAzerbaijani border clashes, Armenian POWs during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Administrative divisions of the Republic of Artsakh, Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno-Karabakh, 20142015 IndiaPakistan border skirmishes, 20162018 IndiaPakistan border skirmishes, Jammu and Kashmir insurgency (1989present), Insurgency in Northeast India (1964present), NaxaliteMaoist insurgency (1967present), IndiaPakistan border skirmishes (20142015), IndiaPakistan border skirmishes (20162018), Insurgency in Balochistan (2004present), Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2004present), CambodianThai border dispute (20082011), East Indonesia Mujahideen insurgency (2015present), Myanmar internal conflict (1948present), South Thailand insurgency (2004present), Philippine civil conflict (1969present), FULRO insurgency against Vietnam (19641992), Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (1988present), Arab separatism in Khuzestan (1922present), IranSaudi Arabia proxy conflict (1979present), Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency (2004present), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war&oldid=1099162596, Battles involving the Republic of Artsakh, Military conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Articles that may be too long from December 2020, Articles containing Armenian-language text, Articles containing Azerbaijani-language text, Articles with dead external links from January 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2020, Articles lacking reliable references from March 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Russian peacekeeping forces deployed to the region.