Riding this horse a little further, we have Christian Armenia annexing Nagorno-Karabakh, which is physically separate and surrounded by Muslimic Azerbaijan. All this is astride the Caspian oil field/pipeline area, and involves Turkey and ultimately the USA.
Armenian Karabakh threat a danger to
peace Turkey
08:48 a.m. Jun 23, 1998 Eastern
ANKARA, June 23 (Reuters) - Turkey on Tuesday
criticised Armenia's threat last week to formally annex
Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh
as a danger to regional peace.
''We condemn Armenia's statement saying they would
annex Nagorno-Karabakh ... this statement could lead
to extraordinarily dangerous results in terms of regional
peace,'' a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said.
Armenia last week threatened to appropriate
Nagorno-Karabakh if Azerbaijan did not accept
compromises on halting the decade-long dispute over
the territory.
The surprise threat was the first time Yerevan had said
officially it might consider annexing the mountainous
region.
It marked a hardening of its position since Robert
Kocharyan, former leader of the mostly
Armenian-populated Karabakh region, was elected
president in March.
U.S., French and Russian efforts to achieve a
negotiated settlement to the conflict have been
deadlocked since then.
Turkey, which has strong ethnic and linguistic links
with Azerbaijan, placed responsibility for the impasse at
Yerevan's door.
''The responsibility for not reaching a solution to the
dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh lies with Armenia,''
the Turkish statement said.
The United States said on Monday Armenia's threat
was unacceptable. ''With respect to that threat, we find
the statement to that effect extremely disturbing,'' State
Department spokesman James Rubin said.
The Armenians of Karabakh, which is completely
surrounded by Azeri territory, broke from Baku's rule
in 1988 in an ethnic conflict which presaged the final
break-up of the Soviet Union. About 35,000 people
were killed in the fighting before a ceasefire was
reached in 1994.
Turkey, a member of NATO, has imposed an
embargo on its eastern neighbour in support of
Azerbaijan since the early 1990s and trains Azeri
officers in its military academies.
Armenia fears Azerbaijan could use its income from oil
production to rebuild its armed forces and attempt to
settle the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute by force.
Turkey, backed by the United States, is lobbying
Azerbaijan for the right to build a pipeline to carry
Caspian oil to the Turkish Mediterranean port of
Ceyhan.
Azerbaijan has ruled out full independence for
Karabakh or allowing the territory to become part of
Armenia but has offered a high degree of autonomy.
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