Turkey's Involvement
Armenia's western neighbor, Turkey, took umbrage after Armenian troops had captured the town. Süleyman Demirel, Turkey's prime minister said that he was coming under intense pressure by the Turkish people to send military help to Azerbaijan. The two peoples are ethnically and culturally related. Demirel however decided not to heed their calls partly because the commander of the CIS forces based in Caucasus, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov had warned that such an incursion would lead to "the verge of a third world war, and that cannot be allowed." The Armenian victory in Shusha had many Turkish officials accusing Armenia itself of seeking to invade the Azeri exclave of Nakhichevan.
Because of international pressure Turkey was ostensibly restricted to providing economic support to Azerbaijan. Nonetheless, the Turkish army and intelligence services launched undercover operations to supply Azerbaijan with arms and military personnel. According to Turkish sources, over 350 high-ranking officers and thousands of volunteers from Turkey participated in the warfare on the Azerbaijani side. Western authors reported several major shipments of weapons from Turkey, including bringing an arsenal of Soviet-made arms from former German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Simultaneously, Turkey was engaged in overt intimidation of Armenia. On the international stage it lobbied various organizations and promoted a pro-Azerbaijani bent of mediation and conflict resolution efforts. Turkish diplomats organized "Turkic Summits" for Turkic nations that included Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to convince the leaders of the Central Asian countries to sever economic ties with Armenia and condemn its military involvement in Nagorno Karabakh.
Read more about this topic: Capture Of Shusha
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