“Can you imagine applying to the CSTO for every case of shooting and if tomorrow, a wide-scale war is waged, who needs this army if we apply to the CSTO for every case of shooting,” said Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan during the meeting with the YSU students, in response to the question of Aravot.am as to why the CSTO is not responding to the cases of ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan and why it does not take measures to promote peace on the border.
In his words, “We ourselves with the balance of our forces, primarily, thanks to the fighting spirit and qualitative features, keep our positions at the forefront. Being in the NKR conflict zone, directly in the zone of contact, we prove that there is no conflict zone anywhere in the world where these problems are resolved without the involvement of the third party, NKR Defense Army is carrying out its tasks without the third party. No matter how our neighbors are involved in rhetoric, swagger that they are powerful and strong, anyway, in the Karabakh Defense Army, the citizen, the soldier, standing in the forefront feels himself very confident and fully protects our border.”
The Minister continued, “Under the CSTO agreements, we have special and bipartite relations with Russia – big agreements on security, military and technical cooperation. Based on our regional situation, we have signed this agreement in consideration of the ratio of regional countries and our country’s potential. I mean not Azerbaijan, but first of all Turkey, with whom we are trying to make good neighborly relations and have a negotiating relationship. In this case, when our main tension is with Azerbaijan, the Armenian army has proved during the war years by passing the exam in excellent, and today it passes the exam in excellent.”
Mr. Ohanyan also touched upon the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group and said that he has no discontents. “We assess their activities as positive. Why? Because if it were not for the work of this Group, in the last twenty years, we would not be able to maintain at least a relative peace … We always say, by putting constant pressure on us, you cannot lead us to unilateral concessions, if we want the problem to be solved, it should be solved thru dialogue and peace, within mutual trust and formation of mechanisms of trust in the forefront. What is meant by a mechanism of trust: to stop shooting, to refrain from diversions, to conduct an international investigation for the cases of violations, about which we have always expressed our readiness.”
Read also
Arpine SIMONYAN
