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India, Pakistan Conflict Heats Up In Central Asia; New Delhi Must Deflate Azeri-Pak-Turk Nexus Against Armenia

The roots of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict have to be traced to certain shortcomings in the National Delimitation process initiated by the Soviet Union to determine National Territorial Units way back in 1924-29. The Soviet Union is said to have carried out delimitation of Central Asia in an unreasonable hurry.

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Besides the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Southern Caucasus, there are other spots in Central Asia where delimitation has resulted in simmering disagreements, conflicts, claims, and counterclaims.

For example, handing over Samarkand to Uzbekistan has remained a bone of contention between the Uzbeks and the Tajiks because a majority of the population in the Samarkand region is of Tajik ethnicity and speaks the Tajik language.

Nagorno-Karabakh is essentially an ethnic and territorial dispute. Armenia, including the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, is a primarily Nestorian Christian-dominated region, while Azerbaijan is a Shia Muslim-dominated region. Religious divergence has also contributed to bitterness between the two peoples.

The two republics, usually called Trans-Caspian Central Asian Republics during the Soviet days, were included in the overall count of seven Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union.

During the Soviet regime, ethnic, linguistic, and territorial aspirations of the federating units were suppressed with an iron fist. The simmering discontent of Azerbaijan thus remained suppressed.

But the first signs of growing conflict over the enclave surfaced in 1988 when the political activists of Nagorno-Karabakh massively demonstrated their antagonism towards Azerbaijan’s claims.

According to the international community, Nagorno-Karabakh has been declared a part of Azerbaijan. However, the majority of people in the enclave are Armenians who never succumbed to that definition and always maintained their individuality.




Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict
Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict – Wikipedia

Even after its implosion in 1991, Russia tried to maintain a neutral stance vis-a-vis the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute and emphasized the importance of peaceful resolution. Nevertheless, Russia has been the leading supplier of arms and ammunition to both sides.

The war of 2020 between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave can be called a watershed in the protracted dispute over several decades. It is this war that dragged external elements into it with far-reaching implications.

Turkey Steps In

Turkey, under President Erdogan, has been dreaming of the resurrection of the glory of the 18-19th century Ottoman Empire. Erdogan’s pandering to Islamism was natural if the grandiose dream was to be realized.

For this reason, Turkey began to look for coordination and alliance with Muslim segments of the Islamic world. Pakistan and Azerbaijan readily accepted an alliance with Turkey, of course, for different reasons.

Azerbaijan is engaged in deep rivalry and conflict with its neighbor Armenia and seeks support from a stronger state. Likewise, Pakistan is in conflict with India on Kashmir, which like Nagorno-Karabakh, is a bone of contention between India and Pakistan.

Apart from this, Turkey felt that given the status of Saudi Arabia as the religious leader of the Muslim world, her ambitions would not be fulfilled unless the influence of Saudi Arabia was curtailed.

Thus three Sunni Islamic countries, namely Turkey, Pakistan, and Malaysia, came together to form an alliance that demanded the ouster of Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Twin Holy Shrines of Islam, meaning haramayn.

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