Armenia and Artsakh Have Sufficient Forces to Defend Themselves, Mnatsakanyan

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, spoke to Interfax about the July escalation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. When asked about the explanation for the ethnic clashes that followed the border escalation among Armenians and Azerbaijanis worldwide, Mnatsakanyan responded, 'It is painful to witness the spread of a climate of hatred not only in our region but also beyond its borders. For Armenia, it is essential to make every effort to create an atmosphere conducive to peace in the peace settlement process. It is impossible to conduct peace negotiations under a climate of hatred, war rhetoric, and the threat of the use of force. It is futile to expect progress in negotiations when Azerbaijan incites hatred on one side while merely expressing a desire for peace in words on the other. In conditions of xenophobia and war rhetoric, it is impossible to assume that we can achieve real progress in the negotiations.'

Addressing the question of what to do to avoid such clashes in the future, Mnatsakanyan stated that there must first be an awareness of the necessity of a peaceful process. There must be political will and concrete measures. 'We are negotiating various specific steps that contribute to reducing hate and war rhetoric. In this regard, the OSCE Minsk Group has many proposals. All of these ideas need to be implemented. We have a good example, as last year we managed to implement a program for exchanging journalists from Baku, Yerevan, and Stepanakert. The results of that were perhaps modest, but important. It is a significant part of the peace process,' he said.

According to Mnatsakanyan, what happened on July 12 was, in fact, another attempt at the use of force since April 2016, but Armenia delivered a decisive counterstrike to this aggression, once again proving that this conflict has no military solution. 'Both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have sufficient forces and resources to ensure their own defense and security, and the crushing counter-strike against Azerbaijan's July aggression proved this once again,' the Foreign Minister noted.