Armenia’s appeals to international community largely remained unanswered – deputy defense minister
Azerbaijan continues the arms race in the region, expanding the types and markets of the purchased weapons, Armenian Deputy Defense Minister Artak Zakaryan stated at a conference titled “Military-political tactic of the adversary and our challenges” underway in Yerevan. In Zakaryan’s words, Azerbaijani acquisition of large amount of weapons speaks of the country’s intention to solve the [Karabakh] conflict through military means.
“Since 2013, Azerbaijan has been consistently escalating the situation across the Line of Contact [between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan] as well as at the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border. Armenia’s appeals to the international community over the matter, the OSCE Minsk Group in particular, have largely remained unanswered,” the deputy minister stressed, while presenting a report over the situation of border clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces and the current strategy of the military potential development of the Armenian forces.
“The military actions unleashed in April 2016 were unprecedented not only in nterms of being the first since the 1994 ceasefire, but also for the first Karabakh war, considering number of factors, including the fire intensity across the whole Line of Contact, the applied weapons and military equipment, the scale of involved forces and military hardware. In the occurred reality Armenia has adopted a policy of suppressing and containing the adversary’s large-scale offence on the frontline,” added the deputy minister.