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Opposition MP Tigran Abrahamyan has expressed concern over the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s response to Baku’s strong criticism of its latest arms deal with France which accused Azerbaijan of plotting new aggression against Armenia.

The Armenian Defense Ministry and a French arms manufacturer signed a contract for the delivery of Caesar self-propelled howitzers on Monday.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday called the deal “another evidence of France’s provocative activities in the South Caucasus” that would create a new “hotbed of war”.

“Azerbaijan’s practice of predicting regional escalations at every opportunity is alarming and comes to prove the analyses made by a number of centers that Azerbaijan will do everything to disrupt the process of concluding a peace agreement with Armenia in order to launch a new aggression against the Republic of Armenia after the COP29 summit in Baku in November 2024,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In a social media post on Thursday, Abrahamyan, who represents the Pativ Unem faction, hit out at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's government for failure to prepare against a possible Azeri attack.

“So, is Pashinyan's government preparing against an Azerbaijani aggression with incomplete clarification of borders, planting of trees for security reasons, withdrawal of troops from the border areas and deployment of border guards?” he wrote on Facebook, accusing the premier of “telling lies” to border residents and hiding the security threats facing the country.

“The reality reflected in Foreign Ministry’s official statement is much more alarming and causes concern," Abrahamyan added.