‘They shoot aimlessly, without targeting anything specific’: Former Mayor of Aravus Village

“Everything is normal here; it has been a while since there were any gunshots. In recent days, there have been sporadic shootings,” said Argam Hovsepyan, the former mayor of Aravus village in the Syunik region, in an interview with ‘PashtInfo’.

“They shoot aimlessly, without targeting anything specific. I don’t know why it has started again, but has there ever been an instance where Nikol went to a meeting somewhere and there was no shooting? It seems there is some sort of agreement, but everything is normal here; there is no panic, and people are living their ordinary lives,” he noted.

When addressing the monitoring of the EU observer mission, Hovsepyan mentioned that he has seen observers, but not in their village. “They haven’t come to the village; I’ve seen them a couple of times coming on the asphalt road, stopping above the village of Tegh, looking through binoculars. What kind of EU observer is that? Shouldn’t these observers come to the border and take action? This is merely formal. If their job is just to record, we don't need that recording. We have already seen what the EU, Russia, and our dear France did when they handed over Artsakh. Today, the enemy is sitting in our sovereign territory—in Aravus, in Tegh, in the area of Lake Sev, in Nerkhin Hand, in Tavush, but what is anyone doing? No one is doing anything. We need to be strong; otherwise, everyone is lying. Of course, it’s important to have allies, but we are not forming friendships with anyone. We just jump from one embrace to another; it won’t work that way,” he emphasized.