Turkey urges UN to stop Armenia seizing Karabakh.
Jonathan Steele in Baku and Jonathan Rugman in Ankara
TURKEY urged the United Nations yesterday to prevent Armenia seizing the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh as senior Azerbaijani officials conceded they had lost control of Shusha, their last stronghold in the area.
“The Armenians are in Shusha. Fighting is going on. Our people are trying to liberate it,” Vafa Gulizade, the Azerbaijani president’s foreign policy adviser, said.
Shusha is the main city on the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. If the city, the Azerbaijani capital of the mainly Armenian enclave, falls, the chances of Armenia’s forcing a permanent corridor to the enclave would be increased. Food and arms supplies would be able to go through unchecked.
War between Armenia and Azerbaijan has raised fears in the West of a regional conflict on religious lines. The United Nations and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe have both sent fact-finding missions to Nagorno-Karabakh, where more than 1,000 people have died.
Armenian volunteers have carried the burnt of the fighting, but the Armenian government denies official involvement.
President Levon Ter-Petrosian of Armenia called President Bush yesterday, while his foreign minister made urgent calls to Germany and Iran.
Turkey’s request for UN action was contained in a letter to the Security Council calling on it to take “serious measures” to resolving the crisis. The letter called for urgent action and is thought to seek a ceasefire enforced by the UN.
The Turkish prime minister, Suleyman Demirel, who is attending a summit of Asian leaders in the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, said that Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally recognised as belonging to Azerbaijan, and that Turkey would not allow that to be changed by force.
In a joint statement issued in the Turkmen capital, Ashkabad, leaders from four republics as well as Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, called on Armenian forces to withdraw from Shusha.
Azerbaijan first conceded the loss of Shusha on Saturday, the day after Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire agreement in Tehran. But its defence ministry yesterday claimed that the town had been re-captured by Azerbaijani forces.
Last night the ministry said: “The situation is changing every half hour. There is fighting in Shusha itself and along the road between Shusha and Lachin.”
Lachin is on the border of Nagorno-Karabakh and separated from Armenia proper by a sliver of land only six miles wide. Aid agencies have repeatedly called for an international corridor to be pushed through there.
The Azerbaijani defence ministry said Lachin was being heavily bombarded from the Goris region of Armenia. It said one Azerbaijani battalion had been cut off in Shusha but four others had broken through to it.
The ministry also reported heavy fighting on the eastern edge of Nagorno-Karabakh around the town of Agdam. It said Agdam was being bombarded by Armenian forces.
The fall of Shusha would almost certainly be the turning point in the four-year war. Azerbaijan has already ceded control of all but a few villages.
In Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, gloomy crowds gathered outside the headquarters of the opposition Popular Front waiting for news, not wanting to believe Shusha had fallen.
An emergency session of the republic’s special parliamentary council on Saturday night discuss whether to postpone presidential elections due on June 7.
The Popular Front is against delay but its candidate, Abdulfez Aliyev, said he would halt his campaign while all forces were concentrated on regaining Shusha.
Mr. Gulizade conceded that the Popular Front had a strong chance of being elected to the presidency.
“The fall of Shusha would deepen the political crisis here,” he declared. “There is no stability of power in the republic at the moment.”
Mr. Gulizade was in Tehran on Friday for the two-day meeting with the Armenians and Iranians. The ceasefire agreement was signed after the Armenian attack on Shusha was under way.
Mr. Gulizade spoke bitterly of Iran’s mediation effort which has, until now, seemed the most promising of the various international missions. “If Shusha is lost, it is all over.”
Iranian proposals reflected Armenia’s position, he said, warning Tehran that one side in this would boomerang.
“Iran’s wrong position on Karabakh will bring an explosion inside Iran from its own Azerbaijani population,” he said. He charged Iran with taking “an anti-Turkish position”, with wanting to bring Iranian fundamentalism to Azerbaijan.
He also rejected the widespread view in Baku that Azerbaijan had become a victim of outside powers. He said Russia was giving weapons to Armenia.
Last stand… The shell of a building in Shusha, the sole remaining Azerbaijani stronghold in Nagorno-Karabakh, which reportedly fell to Armenian forces (photo)
Publication date 05/11/1992
Courtesy of Karabagh Truths platform
