By Philippe Raffi Kalfayan
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
The current coverage of recent events focuses on the war, namely its human and material losses. War is raging between the Armenian armed forces, on one side, and the Azerbaijani army, on the other, supported by Turkey as well as its hired mercenaries.
This war was announced days before it broke out. Turkey and its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, clearly incited Azerbaijan to enter the war. Some unfortunate statements and attitudes on both sides provided provocation as well. This war was predictable and predicted (see https://www.aravot-en.am/2020/09/01/263436/ ) and human lives could have been saved. There will be time to analyze it later.
Today, however, the focal point must be the cessation of hostilities and the achievement of a final political settlement of the dispute.
The military resistance on the ground is, of course, important, but a diplomatic victory is no less so. Without legality, sovereignty is merely de facto power, the effectiveness of which only depends on the balance of power. The intervention of Turkey has changed the balance and increased dramatically the threat to the status of Karabakh Armenians or their potential forced displacement; those two offenses constitute the crime of genocide.