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Yerevan (AFP)
On Tuesday, the Armenian prime minister said in an interview with Agence France-Presse that the resumption of fighting in the Nagorno Karabakh region was caused by Turkish support for Azerbaijan, denouncing what he considered “a terrorist war against a people who fight for their freedom “.
“If it were not for the mass movement of Turkey, this war would not have started. If it is true that the Azerbaijani authorities have massively adopted a rhetoric of war in the last 15 years, then the decision to start the war is due to support Turkey’s total, “Nikole Pashinyan, 45, told France Press at the government palace in Yerevan. .
The prime minister arrived in a caravan with the protection of armed soldiers who were stationed in front of the Stalinist-era headquarters.
Pashinyan seemed calm and spoke carefully, carefully choosing each word he said.
“It is not just a new escalation in Nagorno Karabakh,” the mountainous region disputed for decades between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Muslim country allied to Ankara, he added.
“It is a process marked by the massive movement of terrorist groups from the Middle East in the conflict zone,” he added, which means that the war has become, in his opinion, an “anti-terrorist operation” carried out by Armenian forces. .
Ankara accuses him of deploying fighters from Syria in support of the Azerbaijani army. Even French President Emmanuel Macron described them as “jihadists” and emphasized that Turkey had crossed the “red line.”
In turn, Yerevan accuses the Turkish forces of fighting directly in Nagorno-Karabakh, especially with F-16 fighters, which are “strongly participating” in the battles, according to Pashinyan.
But Turkey vehemently denied all of these accusations.
– Russian intervention –
In light of this, Pashinyan saw that the war in Karabakh is nothing more than a continuation of the Turkish policy of exterminating the Armenians, and emphasized that “Turkey has returned to the South Caucasus to continue the Armenian genocide”, referring to the Armenians who accuse Ankara of having killed around one and a half million Armenians during the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War. However, Turkey rejects the word genocide and speaks of the occurrence of mutual massacres.
In Pashinyan’s view, his country is the “last barrier” to Turkish expansion, and he said: “If Europe cannot name this situation in its name, then it has no choice but to wait for Turkey near Vienna,” referring to control of the Ottoman Empire over the Austrian capital in the 17th century.
Pashinyan expressed confidence that Russia will extend a helping hand to Armenia if it is directly attacked within its territory, as a commitment to the existing military alliance between the two countries under a treaty.
“In the event that the security of Armenia is in jeopardy, Russia’s commitment will be included in the framework of the treaty. I am sure that Russia will fulfill its obligations if the situation demands it,” he said.
As for the international community, especially European leaders, with whom Pashinyan intensified his telephone consultations in recent days, “the best response to this terrorist operation is the recognition of the independence of Nagorno Karabakh,” a matter that no member of the United Nations United has started so far. Not even Armenia.
The battles in Karabakh have raged for ten days, leaving at least 286 dead, according to partial figures. It appears that neither party to the conflict has made significant progress on the ground.
© 2020 AFP
