Russia Has Clear Information on Possible Scenarios Turkey May Implement: Karen Hovhannisyan

The hands of Turkey, or more precisely, Erdoğan, are increasingly extending. This is stated by political scientist Karen Hovhannisyan. Erdoğan is able to utilize his levers and resources to at least redraw the borders of the Ottoman Empire.

Ten years ago, I spoke about his intention to become a national figure stronger than Atatürk in Turkey's history. By diminishing the cult of Atatürk, reducing the number of statues of him in Turkey, he has moved on to more active steps, creating problems with all neighbors and seeing solutions only through territorial means.

Turkey is considered the second strongest force in NATO, but it has issues with NATO member Greece. Turkey enjoys good relations with Russia but has problems with Armenia, a member of the CSTO. Turkey maintains a good relationship with Georgia, but recently did not hide its territorial expectations from the country. Turkey has good relations with Iran but has not given up on the idea of striking the Kurds within Iran. Turkey has good relations with Iraq's central authorities, yet carries out military operations in northern Iraq whenever it wishes.

I will not even mention Libya and Syria; I have spoken about them many times. The term 'good relations' is very relative, as Turkey does not even have good relations with Azerbaijan. Their relations start with military operations against Armenians and end with the trend of completely Turkifying Azerbaijan. This is where a significant future conflict will arise. Turkey will try to seize Azerbaijan at all costs, which will not be allowed by those countries with business interests in Azerbaijan's oil industry; however, there is one means for Turkey to achieve its goals: war.

Now, Armenia is in a situation I have been warning about for years. Unfortunately, those who today consider the war to be over are the same people who believed that there would never be a large-scale war, especially that Turkey would not enter the game.

It is quite clear that before aiming to seize Azerbaijan, Turkey will attempt to establish a land connection with the country, something that Russia evidently sees as well. If you pay a little attention to the scenarios of Russian military exercises, you will see that Russia has clear information on what possible scenarios Turkey may implement, sending clear signals through those exercises.

To give an example, there are exercises based on scenarios of an airport attack, which, while not occurring in Armenia, are directly related to our situation.

We are at a stage where we need to clarify our actions and not try to flounder from one side to another, as we now need to disperse the uncertainty hanging in the air to prevent further steps from leading us into the abyss. We must demonstrate statehood, and not elevate the power seat above national interests, moving forward solely based on the interests of statehood. The fact that Turkey cannot act this way for long is evident; we must do everything we can to maintain our statehood and benefit from Turkey's fragmentation.