The Karabakh war (27 September, 2020 – ongoing) has developed from a local conflict for territories into an international conflict of interests. Western media more and more turns this local humanitarian disaster into a political game where the main antagonist in their very much biased and groundless opinion is Russia, as always. However, we would like to draw your attention to another fact that is being so thoroughly buried under the endless chain of news you get in your mornings. If you gave it the attention it really deserved, the English Crown would’ve probably fallen by this time.
As it is wide known a British oil company British Petroleum has a vast interest in the Azerbaijan market. To put it into numbers, BP operates the two largest oil and gas production projects in the Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Sea, the Azeri–Chirag–Guneshli offshore oil fields, which supplies 80% of the country’s oil production, and the Shah Deniz gas field. In addition to other natural resources, it operates the Azerbaijan’s two major export pipelines: Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (1768 km long, 1 million barrels per capita) and South Caucasus pipelines (693 km long, with a capacity of 143 km).
As the tensions in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict grew, BP decided to accelerate things and start the supply of natural gas to Europe. As written in the recent Reuters article: “This will allow the Shah Deniz Consortium to finalise the final steps required to start the twenty-five years long supplies of natural gas from Azerbaijan to customers in Italy, Greece and Bulgaria as planned by the end of 2020.”1
Just after France, USA and Russia reported and provided proofs of Azerbaijan and Turkey having planned the war long ago, Azerbaijan starting first the war on September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan and Turkey training and transferring Syrian and many other mercenaries to Azerbaijan for participating in the war against Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), British parliament members, without providing any kind of valuable proof, presented a motion to the British Parliament stating the contrary and fully supporting Azerbaijan in this war.
Interesting is also the timing when the British military navy (HMS Dragon, a Type 45 air-defense destroyer) arrived with a four-day visit at the port of Batumi, Georgia, which was later characterized by the British Embassy in Georgia “as a clear demonstration of enduring strong partnership between the UK & Georgia that is built on mutual interests and shared values.”2 Given the fact that Georgia readily provides its airspace and land territory for weapon supplies from Turkey to Azerbaijan and denies the same request from Armenia, we can see a clear picture of who stands behind Turkey and Azerbaijan in this war for “territories”, which in reality is a war of interests of a separate company, which might be backed by the “British national interests”.
With this growing and straightforward support to Azerbaijan, also grows Turkey’s confidence and permissiveness in bullying its all regional neighbors. After a month of a European Union session that discussed the possible imposition of sanctions on Turkey over “provocations” in the Mediterranean, Turkey announced new naval drills off the coast of Turkey on October 12, which shall be carrying its research activities until October 22 despite the numerous and repeated calls to stop by Athens, USA and the European Union.
Turkey has been using NAVTEX, a naval warning announcement, to force its navy into Greek waters or off the coast of Greek islands under the guise of “research.” It is a carefully orchestrated series of provocations by Ankara, stage-managed every month by Turkey’s increasingly aggressive and extremist far-right President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to try to bully Greece and Mediterranean countries. 3
In the long run, no one and especially the European Union imposed any sanctions or other measures to assure that Turkey refrained from its war-like politics against Greece and from entering into Greek maritime domain for “research activities”. The only thing the EU did for its member state was expressing its “deep concern” of what Turkey does to its close neighbour, which leaves Greece all alone with this issue against Turkey. And the main issue why the EU is so reluctant to contain Turkey is not only Erdogan’s blackmails to let millions of refugees flee into the EU, but the blind desire to seek to curb Europe’s dependence on Russian energy and supersede with Azerbaijani gas.
So the right question here to ask is: does the Azerbaijani gas set to be supplied to Greece, which will enslave Greece for at least 25 years, cost more than Greece territorial integrity and the dignity of Greek people?
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