With Friends Like These
With Friends Like These posted at 12:33:57 UTC via cepa.org Turkey’s brinksmanship in the South Caucasus puts a spotlight on tensions within NATO. On Friday, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan flew to Moscow for ceasefire talks. A “humanitarian ceasefire” was announced earlier this week, but at the time of writing appears to have broken down. “Let those holding talks in Moscow know that it’s our territory and we won’t be making any concessions,” Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev remarked of the prospects for peace on Friday, foreshadowing this week’s renewed violence. Currently at an advantage, Azerbaijan has little incentive to return to the negotiating table. In the past, when tensions around Nagorno-Karabakh flared up, neither side gained sufficient advantage to force the other side into concessions. By default or design, Moscow has ended up as an arbiter. This time, however, Turkey seems to be tipping the scales in Azerbaijan’s favor, with the ot...