Azerbaijan legitimizing large-scale attack on Armenia, Karabakh – Pashinyan

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijan is trying to build legitimacy for a large-scale attack on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, March 31.

The Security Council of Armenia said in a statement on Monday that Azerbaijan was paving the way for new provocations and attacks in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). The statement came amid renewed violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, as Azerbaijan has stormed into the zone of the responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers stationed in the area and is refusing to completely withdraw its forces from strategic heights.

Pashinyan said Thursday that before, during and after the 44-day war, Azerbaijan has been pursuing a policy of shaping certain rhetoric that justifies the military attack on Armenia and Artsakh .

"Azerbaijan first throws some theses on the diplomatic or public platform, then accuses Armenia of not responding to those theses or reacting or rejecting them in a destructive way, then attributes some promises, agreements to Armenia, then attributes to Armenia destructiveness and a practice to fail to keep agreements," the PM said, adding that the culmination of such aggressive rhetoric is aggression.

"It is obvious that Azerbaijan is trying to legitimize a large-scale attack on Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. The purpose of my speech today is to show that such rhetoric is groundless and illegitimate."