AZERBAIJAN: A FAILED MILITARY ADVENTURE
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06 .03.08
Today our interlocutor is the Commandant of the Institute for National
Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of
Armenia, Major General, Doctor of Political Sciences Hayk Kotanjian. We
are interested in his evaluation of the contradictory interpretations
of the armed conflict on March 4, 2008, on the contact line of the
Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Defense Army of
the Nagorno Karabakh Republic in the vicinity of Mardakert.
The comments by the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides on the recent
violation of the cease-fire in Karabakh are radically opposite. How
would you comment on the recent incident on the contact line in
Karabakh?
The facts are as follows. In the morning of March 4, a subversive group
of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, violating the cease-fire regime,
occupied one of the posts of the NKR Defense Army. As a result two
soldiers of the Defense Army were wounded. In connection with this
fact, at the request of the Karabakh side the leadership of the RA
Armed Forces informed the OSCE representative Mr. A. Kasprzhik about
it, as well as with the view of immediate restoration of the status
quo and the cease-fire regime. The leadership of the RA Armed Forces
also tried to get into direct telephone contact with the leadership
of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, while the Ministry of Defense
of Azerbaijan informed that Minister Abiyev wasn’t able to enter
upon telephone negotiations due to his business. The Armenian side,
according to the warfare rules, took all the appropriate retaliatory
measures, dislodged the Azerbaijani soldiers from their occupied post
and restored status quo on the contact line.
As a result of successful armed activities by the NKR Defense Army
sub-units, the Armenian military leadership in response to the appeal
of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, informed about the readiness to
provide an opportunity for evacuation of the Azerbaijani soldiers’
corpses from the armed conflict territory. The validity of the given
facts is known to the OSCE.
The political interpretation by the Azerbaijani experts circulating
in mass media is that the Armenian side has initiated the incident
in order to detract the Armenian people’s attention from the state of
emergency declared in Yerevan. In your opinion what is the political
motive of suchlike assessment?
The failed sortie by the Azerbaijani army is being actively discussed
among the Baku’s governmental and public circles and individual
experts in mass media, in order to impose upon the Azerbaijani and
the international communities their own version of the incident. The
failed attempt by the Azerbaijani army to examine the Armenian
positions through an action during the hard times of restoring internal
stability in Armenia is being interpreted by the Azerbaijani side from
opposite perspective. The Azerbaijani side accuses the Armenians in the
authorship and responsibility of this bloody adventure. Baku brings
up false figures of supposedly died Armenian soldiers, underlying
the fighting heroism of the Azerbaijani army.
Despite the verifiable facts, this very obfuscation of facts aims
at concealing the failure of the Azerbaijani bloody adventure
and providing the international and expert communities with an
interpretation of the incident in favour of Baku’s political interests
– facing the ordeal of the forthcoming challenges of the presidential
election campaign.
The interpretation by the Azerbaijani side, based upon rigid
falsifications of facts and exploitation of the emergency situation
declared in Armenia, is an attempt to manipulate the opinions of
the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples, as well as the international
community, interested in maintaining peace and stability in the
South Caucasus.