The RA Defense Minister’s Spokesman, Artsrun Hovhannisyan had a meeting with the journalists on Tuesday, during which he had recommended not to use the word “peace” in the context about the Karabakh conflict. “We do not have peace, we have relative pause. I think it is no longer a secret and no specialist, an expert and an analyst, away from the army, does not estimate the current situation as war. This is war, and I would ask you to use the word “war” in your common literary terminology rather than a “ceasefire violation”, as we essentially do not have ceasefire anymore,” he said.
Aravot.am talked on this statement with a journalist and expert for Caucasus conflicts, Tatul Hakobyan. The latter mentioned that Artsrun Hovhannisyan has stated the situation that we have in the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line, to some extent, in NKR-Azerbaijan contact line and on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, “We have this tension for almost 2 years. In fact, essentially, a mini war, a small war is going along the contact-line or dividing line of Armenia-Azerbaijan armed forces, with causalities”. Tatul Hakobyan said that since the cease-fire in May 1994, Armenia and Artsakh have lost more than 1000 people suffered from the Azerbaijan bullets, in other words, we are talking about several thousand causalities that happened along the contact line, “Today, yes, there is a war along the border, and it must be said for drawing appropriate conclusions, namely, about the fact that when our mothers send their children to the army and say that they are standing in the front line, it can be said that they are sending their children, actually, to the war.”
He thinks that Artsrun Hovhannisyan is trying to present the intentions that the co-chair states have. “According to my information, during this latest Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan meeting, and generally during the recent negotiations, they discussed not the peace document but a new agreement on ceasefire regime and signing of a new agreement. Therefore, I assume that Artsrun Hovhannisyan, also being aware of these intentions that are available in the current negotiation processes, probably meant just it.”
Tatul Hakobyan noted that generally the spokesmen in Armenia, especially the president’s, are very taciturn and silent, “Please, do not take this as praise of Artsrun Hovhannisyan or the defense minister, but I think that Artsrun Hovhannisyan is competent person and has a good command of the rule to contact with the journalists and also has a very good command of the situation in general. And I think the spokesman is for expressing similar thoughts, I do not think that he should only make technical statements. And what was said by Artsrun Hovhannisyan is just stating today’s state of affairs. Very often, we also as journalists, are talking with slightly old vocabulary, in other words, life moves on, new changes are taking place, while we are using the vocabulary, which we used to.
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Consequently, I think that we can also make statements at this level, you can also change the vocabulary. Specifically, for example, I as a journalist-expert have started to use the form of “subversive war” instead of “snipers’ war” as a subversive war is going on, although the international media continues to use the terminology that exists since the cease-fire of 1994. I think that Artsrun Hovhannisyan’s response is quite adequate and mirrors the reality that we have in Armenia, Karabakh and Azerbaijan, in particular, in the contact line.”
Ami CHICHAKYAN
