Turkey, Azerbaijan, Pakistan Form New Axis of Evil

Pakistani terrorists are particularly busy in Jammu and Kashmir, enclaves which have pitted Pakistan against India since 1947.

Tufail Ahmad writes in the March 2 issue of MEMRI, “International issues are of no importance to Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan, since all these three states seem to be guided solely by Islam. Since the late 1980s, the state of Pakistan has nurtured Jihadi terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s refusal to withdraw its troops from Kashmir is not only a transgression of the UN Security Council Resolution, but Pakistan refuses to vacate Kashmir.”

There is ample evidence that Pakistani jihadists have fully participated in the Karabakh War in addition to the Pakistani air force. Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world which has not recognized Armenia and has voted consistently against it at the UN as well as other world forums. After the war, Ilham Aliyev profusely praised Pakistan for its “brotherly support of Azerbaijan.”

Now that this axis of evil has won the war in Karabakh, it has been targeting other trouble spots of the world. Tufail Ahmad writes on the same site that “after the Pakistani military helped Azerbaijan’s armed forced defeat Armenia in Nagorno Karabakh war, it appears that Azerbaijan is seeking an act of reciprocity to assist Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir. This reciprocity — growing out of a trilateral military alliance also involving Turkey, that engineered Azerbaijan’s military victory — is now driving these war partners to target Kashmir as the next military objective.”

Azerbaijan’s involvement in the Kashmir conflict sets it squarely against India, a huge nuclear country, which is also noted for its arms exports.

We seldom witness Armenian diplomacy meaningfully engaged with India, which may provide not only diplomatic support to Yerevan, but most probably also military and economic aid.

While Armenia grieves for the forced concession for passage through the Zangezur region (which Azerbaijan’s leader Ilham Aliyev recently called historic Azerbaijani land) there is a celebration about it through the Islamic world, in the first place, evaluating that corridor as a path for pan-Turanic plans and second as a passage for Turkey to access the Caspian Sea.

Turkish warships are already challenging the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. The Caspian Sea will become another flash point between the navies of Turkey and Russia.

Turkish colonization of Azerbaijan has turned that country into a launching pad for Turkey to extend its forces into Central Asia, yet additionally Baku will become the beneficiary of Turkish exploits in other parts of the world.

Turkey and Azerbaijan not only continue benefitting from Pakistani jihadist forces, but they also have boasted to have become with the latter partners in Islamic nuclear capability.

Pakistan has proven to be an expansionist country, most of the time ruled by the military. It is not a signatory to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Therefore, it is not legally bound to withhold its nuclear arms technology from Turkey. President Erdogan has been claiming for a long time that a major political force like Turkey must be entitled to possess nuclear weaponry. As an expansionist leader, Erdogan may develop its own nuclear arsenal, after Russia completes two atomic power plants, which it has agreed to build in Turkey, but Pakistan’s ready-made bombs become more attractive at this stage.

With Turkey’s aggressive posture in the Middle East and beyond, the military-political configuration in the region will be going through a transformation.

Vali Nasr, in an “argument” published in the March 2 issue of Foreign Policy, states that “the Middle East’s next conflicts won’t be between Arab states and Iran.” He predicts, instead, that the region will be shared by Turkey, Iran and Israel. All three of them have conflicts amongst themselves.

Iran is supposed to be more friendly towards Armenia. But all the plans and promises of economic cooperation with Armenia have not amounted to much. Additionally, Iran’s clergy and foreign policy establishment have been bending over backwards to congratulate Azerbaijan for “liberating” territories from Armenia. Iranian leadership is fully aware and prepared to face the mischief that Turkey and Azerbaijan are plotting against its territorial integrity. Also, the Iranian leadership is fully aware that Israel has been asking Azerbaijan to gather intelligence and one day, to plan a preemptive strike from Azerbaijan on Iran. It should not sound facetious to ask whether Armenia should have emulated Azerbaijan policy to deserve similar deference. Perhaps in that case, Israel would not be motivated to seek Azerbaijani border extended if Armenia had provided the same facility.

With the emergence of Turkey as a major power, the region will become a more dangerous neighborhood. Turkey has been taking advantage of the rivalries between major and minor forces to promote its own agenda. Ankara is at a point of no return if it is not stopped now.

Unfortunately, in this scenario, the Karabakh war may not be the last tragedy for Armenia.