Zhamanak: Blocking Turkey’s sale of Russian weapons to Azerbaijan; main challenges for Armenia

_{© Photo: Russia Today}

Below is an excerpt from the paper’s editorial

In the course of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent trip to Russia, President Vladimir Putin treated the Turkish leader not only to ice-cream but also fighter jets – fifth-generation Su 35 and Su 37 multi-functional aircrafts, which Russia is now offering to Ankara.

Moscow is attempting to gain advantage of the United States' recent move to abandon the sale of fifth-generation F 45 fighters to Turkey, thereby enforcing a sanction for the purchase of S 400 (a Russian-made anti-aircraft weapons system). In the face of the sanction threat, however, Turkey is now - on the level of Erdogan - openly manifesting an interest in Russian fighters.

The situation should be logically of interest to Armenia. And not in the least because of the Russian-Turkish technical-military partnership.  The point is that once in Ankara, the Russian jets may easily make their way also into Baku - given especially that against the backdrop of Armenia’s reported plans to purchase Su 30 jets from Russia two years ago, discussions unfolded among the expert circles over Moscow's intentions to motivate Azerbaijan to buy newer-generation aircrafts.

On the other hand, after the April war and especially the velvet revolution in Armenia, Moscow is facing a kind of restraint in terms of a large-scale technical-military partnership with Azerbaijan (due to subjective, as well as objective factors). At the same time, the factors underlying the ‟strategic partnership″ with Baku – which Moscow has been pursuing since 2004, expanding it step by step (as well as its lethal power) – have not been eliminated at all. This is where Ankara may be a mediator between Moscow and Baku to sell part of the acquired Russian jets to the latter (or re-sell them at least for the price cost). The hazard hypothetically exists anyway, prompting Yerevan to keep a close eye on the developments on the one hand and prepare for counter-measures and preventive action if necessary (in case the theory translates into practice) on the other.

It is obvious at least that the kind of Russian-Turkish technical-military transaction requires that Yerevan have the Russian guarantees that it will not be a mediated Russian-Azerbaijani trading posing threats to Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and putting at stake the ‟air supremacy″ strategy declared by the Ministry of Defense.