Caucasus Foes Urged to Halt Use of Force : Conflict: NATO calls on Azerbaijan and Armenia to respect international law. Turkey says it won’t intervene.

International organizations appealed to Armenia and Azerbaijan on Friday to end their bloody fighting in the Caucasus, telling them to respect human rights and stop trying to solve disputes by force.

Azerbaijan, which sees itself as the victim of a series of strikes by Armenian irregulars in the enclaves of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan, said it will ask Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for help if the bitter fighting goes on.

NATO on Friday called for a withdrawal from occupied areas and an end to the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. NATO, worried that the conflict could involve Turkey, said any action against the “territorial integrity” of Azerbaijan or any other state would be “a flagrant and unacceptable violation of the principles of international law.”

The statement added: “In particular, we could not accept that the recognized status of Nagorno-Karabakh or Nakhichevan can be changed unilaterally or by force.”

The European Community also condemned the escalation of the fighting.

In Istanbul, Turkish officials said that country is determined to resist any pressure to intervene and block Armenia’s recent advances in the Caucasus, fearing that Turkey could be dragged into a regional whirlpool of violence.

Turkey has condemned as “inappropriate” a statement by Commonwealth of Independent States Commander in Chief Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, apparently aimed at Turkey, warning that outside intervention in the Caucasus could trigger World War III.

“We cannot go and grab a gun every time there is a conflict,” said Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel, who travels to Moscow on Monday to defuse rising tension and troop alerts on both sides of the border.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned Armenia’s seizure of Azerbaijani land, telling its new partner in a treaty of defense and mutual assistance that it could not count on Russian help.

“No external conditions give any state a right to resort to annexation of the territory of another country. Nobody can count on Russia’s support for such unlawful actions,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Russia and Armenia both signed the defense treaty after a summit meeting in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan. Azerbaijan, locked in an undeclared war with its Caucasian neighbor, did not sign the pact.

The battles Friday raged around Armenia’s border with Nakhichevan, an autonomous region of 300,000 people, mainly Azerbaijanis, that also has a 90-mile border with Iran and a seven-mile frontier with Turkey. At least 16 people have died there this week.

Armenians accuse Azerbaijan of starting trouble in Nakhichevan to draw Turkey into the fighting. Azerbaijan says Armenia attacked Nakhichevan in a land grab.