Armenian army's high professionalism 'is not the current authorities' achievement' - opinion

The efficiency and professionalism the national armed forces demonstrated in the past days to neutralize the Azerbaijan aggression are not an achievement to be ascribed to the current authorities, according to Gevorg Gevorgyan, a Yerevan-based political and military figure.

"We really have an efficient army. The enhanced officer corps and units of soldiers managed to hit back at the enemy, repelling them with high precision attacks.  What I want to emphasize is it was solely and exclusively the result of the army's professionalism, i.e. - the professional work and dedication. Hence, no authorities are entitled at all to ascribe to themselves the military's achievements. That's only the nation's merit. The army belongs to the nation and the people," he said in an interview with Tert.am, commenting upon the cross-border battles.

Gevorgyan said he doesn't see any connection with the authorities' actions that could have possibly contributed to the success.

The prime minister's intention to start the negotiations from a scratch should not have been a reason at all for eliminating the earlier arrangements promising to strengthen Armenia's positions, Gevorgyan added.  

"They are currently considering plans for deploying monitoring mechanisms along the border. For two years on end, they were promising to start everything from a scratch, whereas currently, they are making attempts to resolve the problem by a single decision. Is that really achievable? Why then did they neutralize the outcome of the [earlier] negotiations? Why did they make the outcome of the St. Petersburg and Vienna arrangements unimportant?" he asked.

Gevorgyan admitted at the same time that the kind of aggressive behavior was characteristic of Azerbaijan "under all the previous governments". He stressed the importance of acting from the positions of strength as the only possible way towards negotiating with the adversary. "That is to say, Azerbaijan needs to see a powerful force to arrange its actions more considerately. We are now practically facing a a temporary calm, but I am more than confident that renewed large-scale military actions are not too far away given that the policies pursued in the past couple of years increasingly contributed to this situation. We should by no means show off the nation's loser image," he added.

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