Nagorno-Karabakh: Russian PM Says 'Turkish Factor' Might Be Involved

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that "a Turkish factor" might also be involved in the recent renewal of clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists and surrounded by Azerbaijan.

In an interview with Rossiya 24 TV station on Saturday, quoted by RIA Novosti, Medvedev assumed that violence could possibly be fuelled from "abroad".

While the nature of the conflict has already been studied, "this doesn't mean that the conflict is unfolding in a vacuum, in a sterile field."

He has also suggested that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statement calling Russia "a side in the conflict" in Nagorno-Karabakh might be an attempt to "add fuel to the fire".

Earlier this week, Erdogan argued Russia was siding with Armenia in the conflict that resurfaced at the beginning of April in violation to the 1994 ceasefire, with casulaties reported on both sides.

Russia has been delivering arms to both Armenia and Azerbaijan over the past years, but it is Armenia where it has its single base in the Southern Caucasus.

Azerbaijan, on the other hand, maintains close political ties and has cultural and linguistic similarities with Turkey, with which Armenia has experienced tensions for decades over Ankara's refusal to recognizes mass killings of Armenians last century as genocide.

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