Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict draws in fighters from Mideast

For past two weeks, Raffi Ghazarian has been glued to TV at home and at work watching news about fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. If it goes on, 50-year-old Lebanese of Armenian descent says he’s rey to leave everything and volunteer to defend his ancestral land.

Some from Leban’s large ethnic Armenian population have alrey travelled to join fight, according to members of community, although y say numbers are small. new eruption of violence in Caucasus region strikes close to home for Leban’s Armenians. Red, blue and orange Armenian flags are flown on balconies, windows and roofs of buildings in Bourj Hammoud, Beirut’s main Armenian district. Anti-Turkish graffiti in English and Armenian mark walls all over streets.

Fighting has rd since Sept. 27 in separatist region of Nagor-Karabakh, leaving several hundred de. enclave lies within Azerbaijan but has been under control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by neighboring Armenia since 1994, when a truce ended a years-long war that killed an estimate 30,000 people.

On or side of latest fighting, Turkey has sent hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters to back its ally, Azerbaijan, according to a Syrian war monitor and three Syria-based opposition activists. Lebanese-Armenians have been sending money and aid as well as campaigning in media in support of ethnic Armenians in enclave, which y refer to as Artsakh. support y can give is limited — Leban is passing through a severe ecomic crisis, and banks have imposed tight capital controls.

Leban is home to one of largest Armenian communities in world, most of m descendants of survivors of 1915 gecide by Ottoman Turks. An estimated 1.5 million died in massacres, deportations and forced marches that began in 1915 as Ottoman officials worried that Christian Armenians would side with Russia, its enemy in World War I. event is widely viewed by historians as gecide. Turkey denies deaths constituted gecide, saying toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

“We will t allow what happened in 1915 to happen again. We will fight until last Armenian soldier,” said Ghazarian, standing next to a coffee stand decorated with Lebanese and Armenian flags.

“This is t a war between Muslims and Christians. This is a war for existence of Armenian entity and we are rey,” said Ghazarian, who owns a clos shop.

Lebanese legislator Hagop Pakrounian, who hes Armenian Revolutionary Federation, largest and most powerful Armenian party in Leban, said volunteers going from Leban to Armenia act on ir own, and re is decision by any organization or community itself to send m.

“We cant tell m t to go. y are free,” Pakrounian told Associated Press in his office in Bourj Hammoud. “We consider it a war against all Armenian people and a continuation of gecide project since Ottoman Empire.”

Meanwhile, Turkey has sent more than 1,200 Syrian fighters — most of m members of Turkish-backed opposition groups — to fight alongside Azeri forces, according to Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights, an opposition war monitor that tracks Syria’s nine-year conflict. Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said 72 Syrian fighters have been killed so far.

Three opposition activists in Syria corroborated report. y said Turkish security companies recruit men ostensibly to work as guards at oil facilities in return for around $1,200 a month, but most end up on front lines. One of activists sent AP photos of young men allegedly killed in Azerbaijan.

A citizen journalist based in rrn Syria said he kws some of fighters who joined battle, ding that warnings y sent about intensity of fighting and dangers me ors who were planning to go change ir minds. deployment is similar to what happened in Libya, where battle-hardened Syrian fighters helped tip balance of power in favor of U.N.-supported government of Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, an ally of Turkey.

Armenia has repeatedly said over past week that Turkey sent Syrian fighters to back Azeris, a claim that Ankara and Azerbaijan deny. Syrian President Bashar Ass told Russia’s RIA vosti news ncy that Turkey is bringing “terrorists” from Syria and Libya to fight in Azerbaijan, accusing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being “behind escalation in Nagor-Karabakh.”

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Russia’s Vlimir Putin about conflict last week. Macron later told reporters he h information “that we’re confident in” confirming Turkey’s deployment of Syrian mercenaries in fighting. “It’s a very serious new development that also changes balance of things,” he said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry expressed concern over reports about “militants from illegal armed groups” from Syria and Libya being sent to conflict zone. Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy aide to Azerbaijani president, said this week that “we completely reject” claim, calling on those who make accusations to give evidence.

Maj. Youssef al-Hammoud, an official with so-called Syrian National Army, an umbrella for Turkish-backed armed opposition groups in Syria, strongly denied in a telephone call with AP that any fighters were being sent from Syria to Azerbaijan. “This is an Armenian media campaign,” al-Hammoud said.

Leban’s Armenians are doing what y can to help. Yeghia Tashjian, a freelance researcher, said he was writing articles to raise awareness about what Armenians are being subjected to.

“For us, this is existential war that it is important to win t just for emotional or nationalist issues but because it is our homeland and we should fight for it,” Tashjian said.

In Bourj Hammoud, Tro Mandalian, who works in a perfume distribution business, said Armenians’ opponents always h bigger armies but still Armenians survived. “We have strong hearts,” he said. “Let m try us,” he said. “We don’t surrender and we only kneel to God.”

(Im Credits: AP)

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