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Azerbaijan is trying to build legitimacy for a large-scale attack on Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) and Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan told a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

“I am sure you are familiar with the statement of the Security Council of the Republic of Armenia on March 28, 2022. The statement, issued following the discussions in expanded format, emphasizes the aspiration of Azerbaijan to launch new provocations and attacks in the direction of Nagorno-Karabakh. We underlined that there is quite a high probability of such developments on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border as well,” he said.

Pashinyan stated that the statement raised additional questions and provided a number of clarifications to make the situation in the region clearer for both the Armenian and the international community.

“Like before, during and after the 44-day war in 2020, Azerbaijan pursues a policy of formatulating the wording for justifying the military attack on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. They first bring forward theses, proposals or comments on the diplomatic and public platform, then accuse Armenia of not responding to those theses, proposals or comments or reacting in an unconstructive way or rejecting them, then attributes some promises to Armenia, fabricates some types of arrangements,” he said.

“Then, in the context of this discourse, they attribute to Armenia none-constructiveness, denial, the practice of not fulfilling promises, not adhering to the agreements, and build aggressive rhetoric based on this accusation, followed by aggressive actions, which are justified by the discourse and content already described above.

“This practice, which has been constantly repeating, continues today and it is obvious that Azerbaijan is trying to legitimize a large-scale attack on Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia, and my objective today is to prove that their discourse is groundless and illegitimate.” Pashinyan noted.