By Edmond Y. Azadian
Azerbaijan has decided to have war games on the Nagorno Karabagh borders. Turkey has joined the same games on Armenia’s borders. They both have planned to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Khojaly “genocide” with many provocative manifestations. In Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the state-sponsored demonstrations were headed by Turkey’s interior minister. At the same demonstrations, the ultra-nationalist group, the Grey Wolves, hoisted banners with these threatening slogans: “Today in Taksim, Tomorrow in Yerevan.” Of course a full-page ad in the New York Times “commemorating” the Khojaly incident intended to bring the war drumbeat to the US shores. Oil money can buy anything but the truth.
Why all of a sudden is this war-mongering orchestrated by a country whose foreign minister was claiming that he had reduced Turkey’s problems with its neighbors to zero?
Furthermore, aggravating the situation is Israel’s saber rattling against Iran, rendering the entire region to a powder keg.
Within the context of war rhetoric and the rising tensions, Armenia has to consider its security arrangements. Armenians have shed too much blood to give any credence to lofty slogans, which the West is showering over the region, under the umbrella of nuclear warheads.
Many people had been questioning the wisdom of extending Armenia’s security arrangement with Russia to another 49 years. Even some politicians in Armenia had joined that chorus. Today the significance of the Russian base in Armenia comes through more vividly.