An Armenia border patrol soldier in Gegharkunik
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday warned that Azerbaijan might be planning a “large scale attack” on Armenia and rejected Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s continued demand for changes in Armenia’s laws.
Pashinyan said that a series of statements from Baku in recent days about the legislative framework of Armenia are a violation of Armenia’s sovereignty and can been seen as “interference in our country’s internal affairs.”
“Attempts to interpret whether there is any provision in Armenia’s legislation preventing the signing of the peace treaty [with Azerbaijan] have nothing to do with reality,” Pashinyan said, after Aliyev, a day earlier, again called for changes to Armenia’s laws.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan have succeeded in reaching an agreement on a number of articles; and one of them is that the parties cannot refer to their legislation in order to refuse to fulfill any provision of the peace treaty. Therefore, there is no provision in the legislation of Armenia preventing the implementation of the peace treaty. This is not only a political, but also an expert assessment,” Pashinyan explained.
He also accused Baku of deliberately dragging out the delimitation and demarcation of the border process, saying that Baku was undermining this process in order to launch a military attack “in some parts of the border” with the aim of instigating an all-out war with Armenia.
Aliyev’s latest threats were made a day after Azerbaijani forces attacked Armenian position in Syunik, killing four soldiers and injuring another.
Pashinyan detailed the steps taken by Yerevan to advance the border delimitation process, all based on agreements reached by the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Yet he accused Baku of undermining the process.
“Our analysis shows that there can only be one reason for this, and the reasons could be their [intentions] to launch military actions in some parts of the border with the prospect of turning the military escalation into a large-scale war against the Republic of Armenia. This intention is read in all statements and actions made by Baku,” Pashinyan said.
