“Artsakh, the army, the soldier, the front line — that is what must be the focus of our efforts in the diaspora and in Armenia,” declared the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, in his address.
Today, October 14, on the 18th day of the war, the leaders of Armenia and Artsakh addressed the people with a message, calling for unity and participation in the military operations.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the causes of the war. Azerbaijan was demanding territories not in exchange for Artsakh’s status, but in exchange for peace, which is unacceptable.
“The essence of that demand was the following: immediately hand over 5 of the 7 territories to Azerbaijan, present a clear timetable for handing over the remaining 2 territories, and record that any status for Nagorno-Karabakh must be within the framework of Azerbaijan. Moreover, the clarification of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status was not to be linked in any causal way to the process of handing over the territories. That is, territories were to be handed over not in exchange for status, but in exchange for peace — otherwise Azerbaijan threatened to resolve the issue by war,” said the Prime Minister.
Pashinyan stated that the government he heads refused to discuss this option, insisting that without certainty regarding Artsakh’s status, a settlement of the issue is impossible. Azerbaijan deemed this unacceptable as well, moving the issue to the military domain, developing a policy of depopulating Artsakh of Armenians, arming itself, and adopting military rhetoric.
According to the Prime Minister, the Tavush battles also proved the unexpected: the Azerbaijani army is not capable of resolving the Karabakh issue by military means. This had a shocking significance for Azerbaijan and also for Turkey, which, after those battles, transferred terrorists and mercenaries from Syria to the conflict zone, understanding that the Azerbaijani armed forces were insufficient to resolve the issue.
“In this situation, we tried to activate the mechanism of strategic deterrence, with the simple calculation that if Turkey achieves its goals in the South Caucasus, this will inevitably lead to a chain reaction of events, and therefore those regional and extra-regional countries that will inevitably become the object of that destabilisation must undertake strategic deterrence actions,” declared the head of Armenia’s government.
At this stage, however, the countries capable of strategic deterrence did not adequately assess the danger, continuing to view the issue only within the framework of the Karabakh conflict, essentially believing that the formula of territories in exchange for peace could save the situation, stressed Pashinyan.
“This, of course, being unacceptable to us, is very similar to the Munich Agreement of 1938, when, supposedly in the name of peace, several European powers ceded Czechoslovakia to Germany, and what happened afterwards you all know. Now the question is this: will the world allow the formation of a new Hitler, this time in Asia Minor,” said the Prime Minister.
According to the Prime Minister, the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance continues its offensive along the entire length of the border, despite the humanitarian ceasefire agreement reached in Moscow five days ago.
“At this moment, the number of our victims is very large, and I mourn our brave martyrs who defended the homeland with their lives. During the 18 days of war, our heroic forces have retreated somewhat in the northern and southern directions. In recent days, the enemy has changed its tactics, trying to create chaos in the rear with infiltrating groups. Nevertheless, the Artsakh Defense Army, through heavy battles, suffering losses in manpower and armoured vehicles, keeps the overall situation under control, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy in manpower and armoured vehicles,” noted the Prime Minister.
The Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance still does not stop its offensive against Artsakh and Armenia. In these days, the co-chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group are making efforts towards establishing a ceasefire, stressed the Prime Minister, reaffirming that the Armenian side is committed to the peaceful settlement of the issue.
“We must turn our grief into wrath, our fears into determination, our doubts into action. We shall win.
It is impossible to break the Armenian people, it is impossible to frighten the Armenian people, it is impossible to defeat the Armenian people. We will stand to the end, we will fight to the end, and the name of that end is Free and Happy Artsakh, Free and Happy Armenia,” declared Pashinyan.
