Opposition With Honor faction MP Tigran Abrahamyan accused the Armenian authorities of giving the green light to Azerbaijan’s efforts aimed at expelling Armenians from Artsakh.
"Two parallel processes are taking place at this point: on the one hand, Azerbaijan is trying to evict Armenians from Artsakh through aggression, on the other hand the Armenian ruling team greenlights it," he told a rally outside the Armenian Foreign Ministry building on Thursday.
“We have gathered here to say no to Turkification and Azerbaijanization of Artsakh and Armenia as well as reaffirm that Artsakh will never be part of Azerbaijan. We will do everything possible to prevent it," the lawmaker stressed.
He highlighted that the Artsakh Armenians had been subjected to Azerbaijani provocations, propaganda and psychological attacks for two weeks now, with a large number of settlements near the contact line coming under Azerbaijani fire.
"The Azerbaijani troops use loudspeakers in various settlements of Artsakh to threaten our compatriots, urging them to leave Artsakh, otherwise they threaten to use force," the opposition MP said.
He also recalled that the pipeline which transports natural gas from Armenia to Artsakh had been damaged for nearly 10 days, due to which the Artsakh people found themselves in a rather difficult situation.
"In fact, there is an energy crisis in Artsakh. Regardless of the claims about holding talks to repair the gas pipeline, the Azerbaijanis give no guarantees that such a situation will not happen again in the future," Abrahamyan said.
He stresses it is clear to everyone that Azerbaijan’s goal is to evict Armenians from Artsakh and to occupy the remaining Armenian-held part of Artsakh.
"At the same time, various politicians from Armenia’s ruling team state that the settlement of the Artsakh issue within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity is a subject of discussions for them. These are not casual statements, but stem from the logic of the statements made by their leader, Pashinyan, especially recently,” Abrahamyan said.