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“We must all get out of the vicious cycle of mere statements about ceasefire violations: an international system of reliable ceasefire monitoring needs to be established,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated on Saturday during the meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces.
In his speech, Pashinyan referred to the recent escalation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The Prime Minister stated, in part: “The purpose of today’s meeting is to discuss the operative situation on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. However, first of all it should be stated that the military-political situation in the region has become tense due to Azerbaijan’s aggression against the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia.”

In Pashinyan’s words, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev’s long-standing warlike rhetoric has intensified in recent months. He threatens to resolve the Karabakh conflict by force and openly demonstrates his intention to abort the OSCE Minsk Group’s mediation efforts. Against this background, he developed the thesis of the strength and invincibility of the Azerbaijani army in a bid to justify those billions of dollars spent over the past decade and a half under the pretext of army development.

"Naturally, against the background of aggressive statements made by the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan, we were supposed to be more vigilant for the security of Artsakh, attention should have been doubled on Artsakh’s Defense Army. Therefore, Azerbaijan decided to strike in the direction we should have expected the least with a single goal to materialize the myth of Azerbaijani army’s invincibility by means of an unexpected blow, to break down the moral and psychological positions of the Armenian side with a swift military success and ultimately attack the Republic of Artsakh in that situation,” Pashinyan said, adding: “The Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, however, showed an exceptionally high level of combat readiness. They not only secured the inviolability of Armenia’s borders, but also shattered the myth built up by the incumbent President of Azerbaijan for a decade and a half about the combat effectiveness of the Azerbaijani army.”

Pashinyan pointed to the fact that with the recent onslaught, Azerbaijan caused significant damage to those countries with which it is cooperating in the military-technical sphere, since the Armenian Armed Forces destroyed weaponry that was deemed to be invulnerable all over the world.

“However, the biggest surprise is the condescending attitude of the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan towards its own soldiers’ lives who were doomed to death since the task set before them was obviously unachievable,” said the PM.

“The provocation undertaken by the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan also has a much broader geopolitical context. In an attempt to cover up its own failure, the Azeri propaganda has started to develop a thesis that the Armenian armed forces are positioned to disrupt and dismantle the international energy infrastructure originating in Azerbaijan. This is done to present Armenia as a global threat.

But this absurd assertion can simply be thwarted by the fact that Armenia theoretically had the opportunity to take such an action far before last week’s events. But it has never had such a goal; it has never been on our political agenda, we never sought to create economic, political, military-political or security instabilities in the region and in the world.

Our task is to ensure our sovereignty, our borders, the security of our country and people, and to promote global security. It has become clear in recent days that Azerbaijan poses a threat not only to Armenia but also to global security. An Azerbaijani official stated a few days ago that their country could launch a missile attack on Metsamor nuclear power plant.

Armenia is capable of ensuring its own security, including the Metsamor nuclear power plant, but this is a statement that should be unequivocally considered a crime against humanity, because such an action is a threat to commit terrorism against humanity, it should be given an appropriate international response and probe,” the PM stressed.

Concluding his remarks, Pashinyan noted negotiations held in the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing format should be continued, and Azerbaijan should finally adopt a constructive position.