Artsakh president makes call for creating new international anti-terrorist coalition

The president of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) has raised the urgency stepping up the international fight against terrorism in the face of Azerbaijan's continuing aggression against his country.

In a public statement on Facebook, Arayik Harutyunyan made a strong call for creating a new anti-terrorist coalition.

"Today, Armenia and Artsakh have found themselves on the frontline of international terrorism in the strictest sense of the word. But what makes our case specific is this enemy, posing an existential hazard to international civilization, has now flexed its muscle against our fatherland disguised behind the flag of a UN member state - as part of that country's regular army or often instead of it. In the modern world where it isn't literally possible to hide anything from anyone, everyone has seen and recorded the international jihadist terrorist network's infiltration into Azerbaijan. It is now an open secret for any world country that the civilians of Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia - our towns and villages and right to live in freedom and master our fate - are the target of that monstrous terrorist network.

"And Turkey, which continually feeds and governs that network, enjoys presently the opportunistic Baku authorities' consent to make Azerbaijan serve as a tool for creating a new hotbed of international terrorism in the South Caucasus. I am confident that every responsible international political actor - whether a state or an international organization - has the clear understanding of the dangerous consequences of the kind of developments. The aftermaths of the Jihadist rebel groups' aspirations for creating a state-styled unit in Iran and Syria are fresh in our memories. All the world countries have real work to do to disrupt Turkey's plan to make Azerbaijan a hideout of terrorism in the South Caucasus.

"Armenia and Artsakh are on the frontline of that struggle today, because they have accepted the challenge thrown down to us with dignity. And we will struggle until a final vicotry. But that's not the task of only Artsakh and Armenia. 

"As the president of a state leading a battle for intendependence, I call upon the civilized world to have its active engagement in this camppaign. The creation of a functioning and effective internaional anti-terrorist coalition is an imperative of the day," the president said.

Azerbaijan launched large-scale offensives along the Line of Contact on September 27, targeting also civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh. As of October 6, the Artsakh defense forces were reported to have shot down 16 war helicopters, 17 warplanes, 126 UAVs, 379 units of armored vehicles (mainly tanks), 82 transport vehicles, 10 armored personnel carriers and multiple rocket launchers (one unit of TOS-1A, four units of BM-30 Smerch and one unit of BM-27 Uragan).

Azerbaijan has lost over 3,454 troops. Armenia's losses increased to 251 after reports on 21 soldiers' death on Tuesday.