Pashinyan noted that the terrorist war unleashed by Turkey and Azerbaijan against Artsakh has been going on for 18 days already. The Prime Minister emphasized that today it is very important for us to understand the military-political situation, but for this we must first understand the reasons and conditions of the origin of this war.
"In the negotiation process on the Artsakh issue, Azerbaijan step by step reached a point where it demanded that the Armenian people, the Armenians of Karabakh, renounce their rights. The essence of that demand was the following: Immediately hand over 5 out of 7 territories to Azerbaijan, present a concrete timetable for handing over the remaining 2 territories and state that any status of Nagorno Karabakh should be within the Azerbaijan. Moreover, the clarification of any status should not have anything to do with the process of handing over the territories.
In other words, territories should have been handed over not for status, but for peace, otherwise Azerbaijan threatened to resolve the issue through war", said the Prime Minister, adding that the current government, which inherited this round of talks, refused to do so.
"It was an unacceptable approach", Prime Minister Pashinyan emphasized.
"In these conditions, when we were trying to state clearly that the settlement of the issue is not possible without defining the status of Artsakh, Azerbaijan rejected any serious discussion on the status. In essence, the only status quo is something like autonomy within Azerbaijan. In fact, the foundations were laid for Karabakh to be emptied of Armenians in general", Pashinyan said.
The Prime Minister reminded that during the last 2.5 years the Government has managed to carry out reforms and rearmament in the army, trying to create real conditions for the provision - "there is no military solution to the Karabakh issue".
"The victorious Tavush battles in July 2020 proved the unexpected for many: the Azerbaijani army is incapable of resolving the Karabakh issue by military means. This was shocking not only for Azerbaijan, but also for many other countries, especially Turkey", he said, noting that the July battles were followed by an unprecedented Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercise, during which Turkey, clearly understanding that the Azerbaijani army is not able to solve any issue, decided that it should deal with the problem itself.
"Something unprecedented happened. Turkey openly started threatening Armenia. At the same time, a large number of terrorists and mercenaries were transferred from Syria to the Karabakh conflict zone. In this situation we tried to use strategic mechanisms with the simple calculation that if Turkey achieves what it wants in the South Caucasus, it will inevitably lead to a chain reaction. Therefore, the regional and extra-regional countries that will become the object of this destabilization must take strategic deterrent actions.
However, a strange thing occurred, a number of countries with the possibility of strategic restraint did not properly assess the danger, continuing to view the issue only in the context of the Karabakh conflict and in fact considering that "territories for peace" is the formula that can save the situation", said PM, emphasizing that it is unacceptable for us.
Will the world allow the formation of a new Hitler this time in Asia Minor, the Prime Minister asked. He compared Azerbaijan's "territories for peace" resolution to the 1938 Munich Agreement, which ceded Czechoslovakia to Germany.
"The war against Artsakh started was not surprise for us. We waited, the question was which hour the enemy would attack. The Artsakh army is really fighting a heroic battle from the very beginning. The Turkish-Azerbaijani-terrorist mercenary alliance launched the strongest attack on Artsakh", the Prime Minister said.
According to him, during the first week, the enemy did not have any strategic-territorial success, and this was in the conditions when it had a huge advantage of supply and manpower.
Referring to the statement adopted in Moscow last Friday, the Prime Minister noted that it was aimed at preventing further losses, but Azerbaijan did not stay true to those agreements for a second.
"This means that Azerbaijan continues to adhere to the political line it initially announced and has set itself the task of fully occupying Karabakh. At the moment, we can state that the Turkish-Azerbaijani preliminary plan to occupy Nagorno Karabakh with a blitzkrieg was thwarted due to the heroic soldiers of our army", Pashinyan said.
