We're ready to go to war in case of Azeri provocation: President

PanARMENIAN.Net - President Serzh Sargsyan spoke of the Nagorno Karabakh peace process in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV channel's program, Opinion, Tert.am reports.

“We are sure that the principles contained in the statements by the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing states – the United States, France and Russia – in the document that is the basis for our negotiations with Azerbaijan for more than seven years are an acceptable basis for a settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The unanimous opinion of the co-chairing states is that the principles are a unit and none of them must be preferred to the others. Of course, we share the co-chairs’ opinion that the two nations must be prepared for peace rather than war. Regrettably, Azerbaijan’s leadership is doing quite the opposite. We have all been witnesses to rising tensions since last summer, and the states and officials dealing with the problem have no doubt Azerbaijan is responsible for escalation,” Sargsyan said.

Azerbaijan’s leaders do not even conceal the fact. At the conference on security in Munich they stated that the tension would continue until Armenia ceded the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh. But the Nagorno Karabakh army had to create a security zone to protect the Armenian population from daily fire.

“That is, Azerbaijan’s leaders are ignoring the principles proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group to resolve the problem. Of course, we have to defend ourselves, and if Azerbaijan embarks on a military adventure, we are not afraid to go to war.

War means losses, and we will suffer great losses regardless of the outcome. We suffered great losses during the Great Patriotic War. Armenia’s population was 1.9 million when the Great Patriotic War broke out, and 2.8 million Armenians lived in the entire Soviet Union then. A total of 600,000 Armenians went to the front, and 314,000 of them never returned. Every ninth Armenian and almost 12% of our population,” President Serzh Sargsyan said.