Saturday, May 11 2019 12:07

ArmInfo. Both Turkey and Azerbaijan have very significant restrictions on the deployment of a military base in Nakhijevan. Director of the Caucasus Institute Alexander  Iskandaryan expressed such opinion to ArmInfo, commenting on the  possibility of the appearance of Turkish troops on a permanent basis  in the territory of the Azerbaijani exclave near-by Armenia.

"Turkey's restrictions, naturally, are due to this country's  membership in NATO. Azerbaijan's restrictions are somewhat different,  but also very serious. Of course, this does not exclude the  possibility of a future base being a priori. However, expecting the  realization of such a scenario in the near future is clearly not  worth it, "he stressed.

In general, the Turkish-Azerbaijani military cooperation has a long  history. And in the case of Nakhijevan, according to a political  scientist, it is mainly due to the lack of protection of the  Azerbaijani exclave.

To note, the military-political leadership of the neighboring Iran  and Azerbaijan has repeatedly voiced the extreme undesirability of  the appearance of any foreign military in the Karabakh conflict zone  and the territory of Azerbaijan. Adheres to a similar position, which  is in a state of confrontation with NATO, Russia.

At the same time, according to political analyst estimates, the joint  Azerbaijani-Turkish "Mustafa Kemal Ataturk-2019" tactical exercises  held from May 1 to 3 in Azerbaijan, are exclusively planned. In this  light, he also stressed that in 2018, similar exercises were held in  Azerbaijan twice.

In Iskandaryan's view, the Turkish military take part in similar  joint exercises with Azerbaijan for the sole purpose of training  Azerbaijani colleagues. According to his estimates, this format of  defense cooperation between Ankara and Baku has been known for a long  time and does not contain any news. The reasons for the information  activity of the Azerbaijani media around these exercises, in his  opinion, are also on the surface - Baku propaganda is trying to use  security cooperation with Turkey as another tool for putting pressure  on Armenia and Artsakh.