“Attempts to establish hotline were undertaken still in early 1990s. Then I served as Minister of Defense of Armenia and we had a direct line with the Azerbaijani Minister of Defense. In most extreme cases when we needed a shortcut connection we used that. But now we no more have it”, – said Serzh Sargsyan in response to a question whether it would make sense to establish a hotline between Yerevan and Baku as mechanism to prevent unwanted escalation along the border.
“Unfortunately, the only hotbed in our case is the Line of Contact”, – Sargsyan said in an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, the director general of “Rossiya Segodnya” international news agency on November 17.
“Would you be in favor of establishing such a communication between the Presidents”, – Kiselyov asked Sargsyan in a follow up question.
“We could do that, if we will smoothly react on incidents… Imagine someone is shooting on the Line of Contact and according to our information, it is the Azerbaijanis; I will pick up the phone and call the Azeri President and he will actually verify that. I will not be against such a thing”, – Sargsyan responded, adding that he will see such a measure as productive if sides agree to pursue these mechanisms on the condition of reciprocity.
Dmitry Kiselyov, the director general of “Rossiya Segodnya” international news agency, interviewed the President of Armenia on a range of issues related to the development of bilateral relations with Russia in military, political and economic spheres, Nagorno Karabakh peace process, prospects of normalisation with Turkey, and other issues.