MFA: Armenia won’t be able to scare Azerbaijan by cheap propaganda

By  Trend

Statement by the Armenian defense minister on the acquisition of weapons on the day when his country carried out the genocide of the peaceful population of Azerbaijan’s Khojaly town 27 years ago, serves as an obvious indicator of clearly aggressive policy, Trend reports with reference to the statement by the press service of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry.

The ministry was commenting on the statements of the Armenian defense minister voiced by him on the public TV.

“It’s impossible to scare Azerbaijan with such cheap statements of propaganda,” the statement reads. “The Armenian minister should know that now it’s not the first years of Azerbaijan’s independence, when in the early 1990s, taking advantage of the fact that Azerbaijan was plunged into internal feuds, Armenia seized Azerbaijani lands. Today, Azerbaijan under the leadership of the president of the country, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, has patriotic Armed Forces that are strong enough, professional, determined and able to liberate the occupied lands.”

The statement emphasizes that the strong economy of Azerbaijan, successful domestic and foreign policy have turned it into an unconditional regional leader.

“We would like to remind that at a time when in the beginning of 2016 there was a discussion of concrete plans in connection with the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, it was namely the Armenian side that adopted a new military doctrine of offensive nature and on April 2, along the contact line of troops, subjected to heavy shelling the areas of dense population by targeting different places including schools, hospitals and places of worship, which led to the well-known April events,” reads the statement.

This statement by the Armenian defense minister clearly shows the international community who really wants peace, and who, by pursuing a policy of aggression, acquires offensive weapons, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

During the Karabakh war, on Feb. 25-26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces, together with the 366th infantry regiment of Soviet troops, stationed in Khankendi, committed an act of genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly. As many as 613 people, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old people were killed in the massacre. Eight families were totally exterminated, 130 children lost one parent and 25 children lost both. Some 1,275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 people still remains unknown.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.