Azerbaijan speaks about peace, but never uses an opportunity to instigate hatred towards Armenians even among the youngest of its citizens, Spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry Artsrun Hovhannisyan says.
“The country fail to demonstrate even the slightest sign of adequacy, which nullifies the chances of establishing peace or at least good-neighborly relations,” Hovhannisyan said in an interview with Public Radio of Armenia.
“The Armenian side has stated on many occasions that in the face of Azerbaijan we have to deal with a terrorist state. The recent report about Baku’s support for terrorist organizations comes to reinforce the assertions,” the Spokesman said.
According to him, Azerbaijan is a ‘country sponsoring terrorism.’ “It has directly exercised terrorism against the Armenian people and keeps doing so. Today we see documents proving Azerbaijan’s support for international terrorism,” Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.
As for the recent provocation of Baku, which forced the Artsakh Defense Army return fire, the Spokesman says “it amounted to a gross violation of a number of international norms.” He referred to the Geneva Convention that defines humanitarian protections for civilians in a war zone, which prohibits deliberately using civilians to shield military operations. Meanwhile, he said “we have a number of proofs of Azerbaijan violating the norms.”
“Disrespect for the rival is just one side of the medal. The other side is Azerbaijan’s attitude towards its own population,” Harutyunyan said. “We have long known they don’t give a damn about their soldiers, but the same attitude towards the civilian population is a different thing,” he added.
Azerbaijan places its missile systems in residential areas, thus making the civilian population a target of retaliatory fire. According to Hovhanisyan, the fact should be brought to the attention of both the people of Azerbaijan and the international community. “People in Azerbaijan should realize that Baku, which keeps manipulating the fact of civilian losses, bears responsibility for the death of the 2-year-old child. This is yet another expression of Azerbaijan’s ‘unhealthy’ propaganda,” he noted.
“Azerbaijan speaks about peace, but never misses an opportunity to instigate hatred towards Armenians even among the youngest of its citizens,” the Defense Ministry Spokesman said.
He believes that “the most important message we have to understand is that Azerbaijan’s inadequacy leaves no room for establishment of peace or at least good-neighborly relations.”
