11:30,
YEREVAN, MAY 11, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on May 11 that by launching a new aggression Azerbaijan wants to annul the progress recorded in Washington and disrupt the planned negotiations in Brussels and Chisinau on May 14 and June 1 respectively.
“Today, around 06:00, units of the Azerbaijani armed forces launched intense artillery gunfire at military positions deployed in the direction of Sotk settlement of Gegharkunik Province, Republic of Armenia, striking the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. The intensity of the active artillery bombardment somewhat decreased after the adequate and effective countermeasures by the Armenian army. There are four wounded on our side, whom I wish speedy recovery,” PM Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting.
Pashinyan said that this provocation, along with other actions by Azerbaijan, seeks to annul the progress reached during the foreign ministerial talks on May 1-4 in the United States.
“Today’s provocation also seeks to disrupt the trilateral format talks in Brussels on Sunday, as well as the five-sided talks in Chisinau planned for June 1. Experience shows that Azerbaijan needs the negotiations process only for getting an argument for escalation and war, while escalations are used exclusively for nullifying any progress achieved in the talks. This is what’s happening now,” the PM added.
PM Pashinyan also said that the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s May 10 statements accusing the Armenian army of violating the ceasefire are false.
“They fabricate such information for escalating the situation. If escalation is not what Azerbaijan seeks, any local incident can be swiftly resolved through achieving a preventative agreement on clarifying and exchanging information through existing communications. No such thing happened yesterday for one simple reason, because there was no incident and the Azerbaijani disinformation machine fabricated this story with a past date for escalating the situation. While the main goal of escalating the situation is to nullify and negotiations progress and disrupt the course of future negotiations,” Pashinyan said.