Touching upon the actions unleashed by the enemy along the Artsakh-Azerbaijani border, the head of the NA "My Step" faction Lilit Makunts made a speech in the parliament.
“In a well-planned and coordinated Azerbaijani offensive against Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) early Sunday morning, weeks and months of mounting tension has manifested into outright fighting, with a serious potential for expanded combat operations that would surpass the April 2016 fighting, which we call a 4-day war. And while the situation is grim, with little sign of de-escalation, the threat environment is heightened by an even more assertive Turkish posture, which not only encourages Azerbaijan but also complicates the necessity for a return to diplomacy over force of arms.
After months of bellicose threats and aggressive discourse from Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in the early morning hours of Sunday, 27 September, the Azerbaijani armed forces launched a coordinated military offensive targeting military positions and civilian areas in Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh).
This sudden offensive opened with a preliminary massive artillery and rocket barrages, that was then followed by an assault on the areas along the “line of contact” between Karabakh and Azerbaijan that involved the use of armored units in support of an infantry ground assault that was bolstered by the deployment of over two dozen UAVs or military-grade drones. After inflicting the initial damage and casualties in the surprise attack at dawn, later in the morning, Karabakh defensive units were able to repulse the offensive, destroying at least three Azerbaijani tanks, armored personnel carriers and downing several weaponized attack UAVs.
Despite the shared threat from the global public health crisis over the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, Azerbaijan chose this especially vulnerable time to attack. This is not an isolated incident, however, as this new offensive follows a similar attack in July, now seen as part of a more pronounced pattern of using the military force of arms to attempt to impose a “resolution” to the Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict by force rather than through diplomatic negotiations. And in this context, Azerbaijan has only revealed that it now stands apart as the primary threat to regional security and stability in the wider South Caucasus.
Moreover, the coordination and logistical preparation necessary to conduct this latest offensive by Azerbaijan only demonstrates that this latest round of fighting was a calculated and planned act of aggression. Beyond the surprise nature of the attack, Azerbaijan’s targeting of civilian areas and population centers in Karabakh also demonstrates their flagrant disregard for the standards and norms of international law, while raising new concerns over possible war crimes and other abuses by the Azerbaijani regime.
And although Armenia has emerged as a fully respected and legitimate democracy, the nature of the regime in Azerbaijan, whose political legitimacy is founded not on free and fair elections, but is derived from family tradition and genetics, with power passing from father-to-son through the rule of the Aliyev dynasty.
An interesting and undeniable aspect to this latest Azerbaijan attack is the fact that each and every modern Azerbaijani leader up until current President Ilham Aliyev has either come to power or fallen from power solely due to events on the Karabakh battlefield. This only shows that by resorting to force and resuming war is a risky gambit for the Aliyev family dynasty in Baku.
Thus, despite years of commitment to diplomacy and concern for peace talks, Armenia and Karabakh now stand alone, with no partner for peace and little hope for sincere or serious negotiations with Azerbaijan. Thus, the imperative now is from a “back to basics” diplomacy, focused more on preventing renewed hostilities and pressuring Azerbaijan as the only party to the conflict that threatens and undermines a diplomatic resolution to the Karabakh conflict".
