09:30, 6 March 2023

YEREVAN, MARCH 6, ARMENPRESS. The former State Minister of Artsakh Artak Beglaryan issued a statement on the Azerbaijani disinformation regarding the March 5 deadly ambush by Azeri forces against Nagorno Karabakh police officers.

Beglaryan said that the Azerbaijani disinformation is “simple and unreasonable” to such extent that even a child can identify the lies.

Below is the full statement released by Beglaryan.

“The disinformation from Azerbaijani authorities is so simple and unreasonable in its logic that even a kid can identify their lies on the ambush their armed forced carried out on Artsakh policemen today.

1. The Artsakh police car was traveling from Stepanakert to their duty checkpoint in the Shushi region, while the Azerbaijani side claims that it was traveling from Armenia to Stepanakert. The car’s direction of travel is fully visible in the video published by the Artsakh Police.
2. With the police vehicle traveling from Stepanakert, it is clearly impossible that they were transferring weapons, or anything for that matter, from Armenia to Artsakh because they were traveling in the opposite direction.
3. The video also shows the moment Azerbaijani servicemen ambushed the police vehicle, firing then approaching and opening the door then throwing documents, claiming to check for weapons that they didn’t find.
4. A photo published by the Police also shows the targeted vehicle, at the location, post-attack, was empty, which means that there was no cargo in it.
5. Besides the fact that the officers were traveling from Stepanakert, they were also traveling in a small vehicle barely large enough for the passengers, how could weapons be transported in such a small car?
6. The video also shows how the Azerbaijani servicemen were shooting at the car from a distance and then approaching closer and shooting again into the car. Video evidence makes it apparent that only after leaving the location of the attack, Artsakh military positions fired in defense. It refutes Azerbaijani false claims that the Artsakh side shot first.
7. If the Artsakh side was the first attacker according to the Azerbaijani side, in that case what about the video evidence and why the targeted car and the losses of both sides were on the road under our control over 1 kilometers far from the contact line?
8. Azerbaijani authorities planned this attack, wrongly assuming their ambush and killing of our people would not receive an adequate and defensive response from the Artsakh military position near the incident location. We have full rights to protect our people from Azerbaijani crimes and genocidal actions.

This is nothing less than a continuation of the ethnic cleansing policy of the Aliyev regime against the people of Artsakh in parallel with their 84-days of blockade.

Azerbaijan has not only done nothing to implement the UN International Court of Justice order, published on February 22, to open the Lachin Corridor for unimpeded movement of persons, cars and cargo, but it continues to deteriorate the humanitarian crisis further with such kind of aggressions.

By the way, the UN International Court of Justice rejected the Azerbaijani application on Armenian munitions saying that there are not sufficient evidence on those claims.

The Aliyev dictatorial regime of Azerbaijan must be punished by the international community for this and previous crimes, including the blockade, otherwise they will continue to escalate their aggressions and commit new and more brutal crimes against humanity and the people of Artsakh.”