CENTRAL NEWS
In an interview with the Chinese Caixin Media, the President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian, outlined the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, bringing light to interesting details.
When asked whether he thought if there was any basis for negotiation with Baku again? The president replied by outlining the brief history of the Nagorno-Karabakh republic. The president emphasised that the decision to break away from Azerbaijan was a decision taken by the people of the republic in 1988 following the breakdown of the Soviet Union.
“The people in Nagorno-Karabakh, eventually, in a referendum, voted for getting out from Azerbaijan and declared again their independence that they had for hundreds of years or thousands of years,” Sakissian said.
In relation to Azerbaijan’s sudden change of mind and greed for blood, the President drew attention that Azerbaijan “just sent troops and started killings.” He continued, “And the conflict turned into a war, which was stopped in 1994 with an understanding that there will be negotiations.”
Turkey is bringing Jihadis to war
Relating to the jihadists being brought in by Turkey to the Armenia-Azerbaijan war, the Armenian president highlighted that bringing terrorists to a war is unacceptable. Information was also shared about Turkey breaking international law by attacking Armenia, and the agreements signed between Turkey and the USA in the use of the high-technology equipment being used by Turkey.
“Turkey brought with them generals, officers and supervisors to mainland Azerbaijan, and the worse, it hired terrorist groups, Jihadis from Syria. And this is not about 10 or hundreds. It is about thousands of them. How on earth a 3rd country interferes in the conflict of two states: the state of Azerbaijan and the small state of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is, of course, Armenian, and the Armenians are supporting them. However, as you break into that equation, Jihadis are terrorists and this is not controllable.
The third thing is that absolute modern technology is used by Azerbaijanis and also the Turks, the modern drones and F-16 jet fighters, which is, again, basically breaking all international laws and rules. I am absolutely sure that the contract that Turkey has with the USA doesn’t allow them to do that sort of stuff. I am absolutely confident that the agreements that Turkey signed to become a NATO member are forbidding them to do that. But they have just ignored all that. And now we also have facts that American equipment is used not only in Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh Republic, not only there are drones made in different places of the world, including in Turkey, but they are using them against Armenia.
During last night, 4 drones, Turkish made, have crossed the State border of Armenia and were heading towards the capital Yerevan. Four of them were shot by the Armenian defence system.”
PKK Involvement
When asked about Turkish weapons entering Armenian airspace, and where the attacks on Yerevan are being made from, Sakissian answered: “I don’t have the final information about where they crossed the border from Turkey side. But it doesn’t matter. These are Turkey-made drones. And they are controlled by Turkish operators. And they are crossing the border. So, we have all the evidence of Turkish involvement. Then they give some “reasons” of why they are doing that.
One of the reasons is that they are ethnic brothers with Azeris. I’m sorry; Turkish nations are so big, and Turkey has ethnic brothers in the North Caucasus, in every region of Russia, in Central Asia, including in the north of China. But if they are looking for ethnic brothers, they can have the freedom of interfering in each and every of those states in order to support somehow a call from ethnic brothers. Absolutely unacceptable.
Second, they were claiming that there are PKK soldiers or fighters in Armenia. A complete nonsense! There is not even one or a half of a PKK soldier in Armenia. We have a very small minority of Kurdish Yazidis, and other ethnic minorities. But they are not many. And most of them are Yazidis. They are not Muslims. Their faith is Yazidi. And all of them are very good citizens of Armenia, and some of them living in Nagorno-Karabakh. When the danger is there everybody is basically fighting for their own country because they all are citizens of the Republic of Armenia, or they are citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh. So, this is another nonsense.
The third one, which is interesting, Turkey has now deployed its military might along the energy pipelines, claiming that there is a danger that Nagorno-Karabakh will bomb these pipelines. And this is another nonsense.
If Nagorno-Karabakh or Armenians had the intention to bomb that, they would have been bombing it 20 years ago when this pipeline was going to be built, but they didn’t hit it. If the first bombs would fly when the first hundred meters of the pipeline were about to be put in place, there would not be any pipeline at all. Am I right? People, international community, and the companies would be afraid of putting the pipeline in a place where it is dangerous. And if there was a threat from, let’s say, Nagorno-Karabakh, so, it would not be pipelined.
But Armenians didn’t do that, and didn’t do that in the next 20 years. And during all these 20 years Azerbaijan was making billions and billions of dollars selling oil and was using those billions to buy armaments and kill my fellow Armenians? Now they are saying that Armenians will explode it, which is a complete nonsense. I categorically deny this.”
