ArmInfo. Turkey is once again trying to play the "Artsakh card" this time for the sole purpose of forcing Moscow to refuse to support Bashar al-Assad in Idlib. A similar opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by the Director of the Armenian Center for Strategic National Studies Manvel Sargsyan.
Analyst considers the analyst's recent tweeted appeals of the head of Turkish diplomacy Mevlut Cavusoglu and his meetings with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group precisely in the context of the confrontation around Syria. According to him, Ankara today is trying in vain to find at least some points of influence on the Syrian positions of Moscow. And the activities of Cavusoglu in the direction of Artsakh are due to these attempts.
Following the meeting held in Ankara on March 2 with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Cavusoglu voiced a call to mediators on a call "to resolve the conflict within the framework of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan."
Given Turkey's membership in the OSCE Minsk Group, similar meetings with the co-chairs, according to Sargsyan, have happened before. However, this time, amid serious problems with Moscow in Syria, Ankara is trying to demonstrate to Russia its own possibilities for influencing the settlement of the situation around Artsakh.
"Having encountered the resistance of the Syrian army in Idlib supported by Russia, Recep Erdogan received only political support from NATO. After that, he decided to fly to Moscow, apparently deciding once again to try to use the Artsakh map in the negotiations. However, given the steadfastness shown by Russia this time around the idlib events, as well as the passive reaction of NATO, the attempts of Erdogan and Cavusoglu were doomed to failure from the beginning, "the analyst summed up.
Today, Igor Konashenkov, an official spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, told reporters about the daily attacks of militants at the Russian air base Khmeimim and Syrian cities. He caused a similar situation by Ankara's failure to fulfill its obligations to create a demilitarized zone in Idlib. "The observation posts of the Turkish Armed Forces in the Idlib de-escalation zone in Syria were located in the fortified areas of terrorist groups and, in fact, merged with them," he said.
The situation around Idlib province escalated on February 27, when, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, the militants attempted a large-scale offensive. The Syrian military attacked them, as a result of which, according to Ankara, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed. The Russian defense department reported that the Turkish armed forces who had come under fire from the Turkish Armed Forces were among the terrorists.