STEPANAKERT—Speaking about the recent escalations in violence at the line of contact between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, Spokesman for Armenia’s Ministry of Defense Artsrun Hovhannisyan on Friday said that it is likely that Azerbaijan’s increased aggression is connected to the Armenian Genocide’s one hundredth anniversary. Responding to suggestions to bolster the frontlines in Artsakh with Armenian forces, the Spokesman said, “The Armed Forces are properly performing their duties, and there is no urgent need to involve the reserves.”
“If we respond to Azerbaijan following the ‘eye for an eye’ principle, large-scale military actions will start the next day, where we’ll have tens of thousands of losses,” Hovhannisyan said.
Responding to questions from some journalists about what they called Armenia’s seemingly “passive” response to Azeri aggression, Hovhannisyan said, “The things we lament – that is, the victims and the wounded – and would like to reduce the number of, is unfortunately not something anyone can practically achieve.”
Armine Sadikyan, a coordinator of “peace projects” at the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, warned against attributing the losses in the military only to the violations of ceasefire, claiming that the fatalities caused by such violations accounted only for 25 percent of deaths from 2010 until 2014.
Tensions in the Artsakh conflict zone have steadily increased since August last year and have resulted in dozens of deaths between the Armenian and Azeri sides. The rise in tensions has been largely attributed to Azerbaijan, with the moderating OSCE Minsk Group explicitly blaming Azerbaijan in February for its continued violations of the ceasefire.
Plus Russia’s weapon sales late last year to the tune of 4 billion dollars!
“If we respond to Azerbaijan following the ‘eye for an eye’ principle, large-scale military actions will start the next day, where we’ll have tens of thousands of losses,” Hovhannisyan said.
With this kind of illogical thinking then ever country should simply sit idle while its soldiers die. Great quick way to disenfranchise and lose morale among the troops. Imagine Israel simply looking the other way each time a soldier is killed…..
Only Democracy in Azerbaijan can change the situation, whyle Aiyev and his Corrupt family are in power, things will not improve,
Israel signed up 5.4 billion technology transfer to Azerbaijan ( weapons, security systems, surveillance detectors and a panoply of tech.; Turkey supplied Azerbaijan arms to the tune of 3 Bn. and keeps all the logistics and spares for ongoing supplies. Belarus also supplied arms for a few million, the British have provided arms too. In a 7 year span Azerbaijan has spent a great deal of BN on weaponry. Of late the Israelis are negotiating, under USA auspices, further sale and shipment of arms for a few more Bn. Avigdor Lieberman is taking credit for this deals . Poor Russia is lagging behind in the race to arm Azeries. Lucrative arms sales are being snitched from under Russian noses by their competitors.
Ivan needs to wake up. Nothing will change in Azerbaijan until the next round of fighting, and then Alyev, like Elchibey in 1993, will withdraw licking his wounds. Azerbaijan will only be silenced by force of arms. Alyev is the best thing for Armenia, he barks and barks like a pit bull but he never attacks.