The Greek daily Kathimerini had an interview with RA President Armen Sarkissian.
The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has turned from a frozen conflict into a war of attrition for the last six weeks. Could you describe the situation on the ground and give us an idea of the human toll for the Armenian people?
I wouldn’t call the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict “frozen” because the Azeri side has always been trying to change and challenge the status quo by military means since a ceasefire was established between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan back in 1994 reached with the mediation of Russia. Instead of using the negotiation table to reach a final solution to the conflict during almost three decades, the Azeri side not only didn’t refrain from regularly and deliberately violating the ceasefire agreement and killing Armenian soldiers on the line of contact and civilians, both in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, but it was buying a large amount of modern weaponry worth billions of US dollars, including some prohibited ones, and turning the entire region into a powder keg. Moreover, Azerbaijan has been preparing its own population for a war, while the Armenian side then and now was a strong proponent of peaceful solution, and the Armenian elites were even sometimes criticized by some opposition representatives for being too peace-oriented instead of increasing military spending and harsh rhetoric.
Since the early 90s, Azerbaijan has increased its military budget by 10 times, and has never refrained from heavy xenophobic and militaristic rhetoric. Now we are witnessing its genocidal intentions in full action. Moreover, this inhuman aggression unleashed by the non-democratic Azerbaijani regime on September 27 is militarily and politically supported by another non-democratic regime in Turkey. Dictatorships don’t care about the destiny and prosperity of their own people, let alone respect simple human lives, values and dignity. A non-democratic regime, be it in Baku, Ankara or elsewhere, builds its “strength” and “pride” on the suffering of its own people, and hence, is of course more than inhuman toward other nations. Nagorno-Karabakh is not a conflict but a struggle of the pride of the Armenian nation for its security, proud life and dignity vs killings, humiliations and suffering.
Read the full interview here
