Kocharyan: Armenia's current government must admit 'higher war risks'

Armenia's current government must have the honesty to admit that their wrong policy attitudes to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) contributed to higher war risks over Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) contributed to higher war risks in the past couple of years' period, second President Robert Kocharyan said Wednesday

In an interview with several local TV channels, the former president noted that interethnic clashes like those reported in Moscow and United States (after the recent cross-border skirmishes along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border) did not occur even in the period of the 1991-1994 war.

"We need to fix two very important facts, i.e. - that we presently have not only a revanchist government but also a revanchist people in Azerbaijan. And when the two factors converge, the risks of a renewed increase considerably. There isn't a specific formula to appeal to the people or pin hopes on the Azerbaijani government's constructivism. The Government of the Republic of Armenia must confess that they pursued the wrong policies, and we must admit that we are now facing a more dangerous situation in terms of [a renewed] war than we did two years ago," Kocharyan added.

Addressing a recently announced plan for developing a joint Azerbaijani-Armenian strategy (a proposal made by Vitaly Balasanyan, the secretary of Artsakh's Security Council), Kocharyan said treats the idea as nothing more than an attempt to skid in the same direction. "In such serious matters as this, it isn't  advisable at all to try to look original or start everything from a scratch. It is much more serious," the former president noted.

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Azerbaijani combat troops launched series of attacks against north-eastern Armenian military outposts on July 12. In the early morning hours, the Ministry of Defense reported an incursion attempt by several Azerbaijani servicemen who wanted to cross into the Tavush region in a jeep car. After a warning by the Armenian side, they returned to the starting positions, leaving the vehicle on Armenia's territory.

The adversary repeated the border transgression attempt about an hour later, opening fire in the same direction but was subsequently suppressed and pushed back with losses

Azerbaijan kept the north-eastern outposts under fire also on July 13 and 14. The tensions gradually abated the following days. Four Armenian servicemen were killed in the wake of the cross-border violence. Azerbaijan's military reported 11 losses.

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The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in 1988 when the Armenian majority of the then autonomous region declared its intention to break away from Azerbaijan. In a referendum held on December 10, 1991 (days before the collapse of the USSR), the population voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence (99.89%). The move was followed by Azerbaijan’s large-scale military operations against Nagorno-Karabakh and seven neighboring regions. The armed violence left around 25,000-30,000 people dead; thousands were internally displaced. The Ceasefire Accord, which went into effect in May 1994, formally put an end to the armed attacks in the conflict zone, but sporadic fighting in the area breaks out time and again. Since 1994, the OSCE Minsk Group, a mission co-chaired by France, the United States and Russia, has been spearheading the efforts towards  a peaceful solution to the conflict. .

The hostilities escalated to an unprecedented degree in April 2016 in what was later dubbed a Four-Day War. In the early hours of April 1, 2016, Azerbaijan's armed forces launched heavy offensives along the Line of Contact,  provoking large-scale confrontations with the Defense Army of Nagorno-Kkarabakh. The adversary also shelled civilian settlements, particularly the southern and north-eastern regions of Hadrut and Marakert.

A ceasefire was reached on 5 April between the chiefs of the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Moscow. The Nagorno-Karabakh authorities also welcomed the verbal agreement.