One of Nikol Pashinyan’s close associates, Andranik Kocharyan, the chair of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia’s (RA) Committee on Defense and Security and a member of the ruling faction, stated: “We are currently focused on addressing issues of a defensive nature, be they of an engineering or anti-aircraft nature… The weapons acquired or planned for acquisition are aimed at normalizing the disrupted balance in the region, because its disruption allowed the adversary to initiate military actions, once in 2016 and on a large scale in 2020.”
Setting aside the fact that it would take Armenia years and billions of dollars just to “catch up” to its 2020 military level, and yes, Azerbaijan will not be standing still during this time. Let’s not focus on who will foot the bill for Armenia’s “balancing” efforts. Instead, let’s focus on something else. What “transition to military actions” is Mr. Kocharyan talking about? If Pashinyan’s team has forgotten, we remind them: both in 2016, 2020, and in 2023, military actions took place exclusively on the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan.
And now, if one of the closest associates of the “barbecue marshal” makes such statements, it implies that Pashinyan’s team does not recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Despite all promises to support the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991. And such duplicity has been observed in Pashinyan not for the first time.
Thus, the only thing left is to warn: there are always consequences for such games. Azerbaijan has repeatedly warned about this, clearly and at the highest level. And if someone did not hear our warnings or did not take them seriously – they only have themselves to blame.
