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Armenia’s Ambassador to Lithuania Tigran Mkrtchyan made comments for LRT radio on the recent aggression by the Azerbaijani military on the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border.

The Armenian diplomat told LRT radio that successful negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh can be ensured only when sides decide to pursue the same goals.

“In any conflict, if you want everything or nothing, you won’t have any progress in negotiations. We believe that the negotiations must be based on the solutions proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, which Armenia has welcomed, but Azerbaijan has always rejected them in this or that way,” he said. “Another reason is the revenue from the oil used to buy large amounts of military equipment in Azerbaijan. This has created a misleading picture in that country that Azerbaijani leaders can resolve this conflict by military means. It’s time to understand for all, and particularly for Azerbaijan, that the conflict doesn’t have any military solution.”

Mkrtchyan states that the Armenian economy is also suffering from Turkey's actions. “I should mention of course, that Turkey's role in this entire issue is very destructive. Since 1994, their rhetoric this time was in an unprecedented way aggressive, in contrast to the rest of the international community, including Lithuania, which calls for a peaceful solution to the conflict, and respect for the ceasefire signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite these calls, Turkey adds fuel to the fire. This poses a serious threat, given that Azerbaijan is targeting our civilian buildings and threatening to blow up a nuclear power plant in Armenia. This is an unprecedented threat that looks like nuclear terrorism," the diplomat said.

According to him, it is important not only to ensure compliance with the ceasefire and international commitments, but also to allow international observers into both sides of the border and in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

“We talk about the act of aggression of Azerbaijan, but people can say, how can we know about it if there are no independent observers to confirm that? So the question is why aren’t there such ceasefire violation monitoring mechanisms? The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group have repeatedly proposed it since 2015. Armenia supported that. After the conflict, in April 2016 the proposal was repeated. Armenia has always supported this, but Azerbaijan has been rejecting it up until now,” Mkrtchyan stressed.

During the report, comments were made also by Dovilė Jakniūnaitė, a political scientist at the IIRPS VU (Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University), and Mahir Gamzayev, the chairman of the Azerbaijani community in Lithuania.