Azerbaijan tries to keep the tension on the border and the opportunity of resuming the military operations also during the demarcation process, to present territorial claims against Armenia and resort to military provocations if those demands are not met – this is an unacceptable approach, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during the Cabinet meeting.
He said Azerbaijan is using the Armenia-Azerbaijan border demarcation and delimitation issue for forming a speech justifying escalation.
“Based on the results of the trilateral meeting held in Sochi on November 26, 2021, the President of Russia, the Azerbaijani President and the Prime Minister of Armenia adopted a statement which says that they agreed: “to take actions to raise the level of stability and security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and push forward the process to the creation of a bilateral commission dealing with the delimitation and then the demarcation of the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan”.
I don’t think that this statement could be misinterpreted, and it’s obvious that the creation of the commission on demarcation and delimitation issues must be preceded by steps aimed at raising the level of stability and security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border”, the Armenian PM said.
Pashinyan said Azerbaijan hasn’t made any proposal over these steps, whereas Armenia made a proposal over withdrawal of troops in mirrored fashion from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and giving the protection of that border to a limited number of border troops, as well as conducting an international monitoring of the border.
“Azerbaijan hasn’t given an official response to this proposal yet, according to the information received by the third countries, our proposal is not acceptable for Azerbaijan”, Pashinyan said. He added that Armenia has been and will be maximally flexible on this matter and has also proposed several formulas for withdrawal.
“Azerbaijan either does not accept or does not respond to these proposals. What does it mean? In fact it means that Azerbaijan is trying to keep the tension in the border and the opportunity of resuming military operations also during the demarcation process, in order to present territorial claims against Armenia and if these demands are not met, to resort to military provocations. This is an unacceptable approach”, the Armenian PM added.
He said it is necessary to launch an international monitoring mechanism of border situation.
“We proposed several such options also to Azerbaijan, and any of these options, that Azerbaijan accepts, will be acceptable for us”, he said.
