Answers of Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan to the questions of Public TV channel’s “Orakarg” program
Question: Mr. Kocharyan, what could be the assessment of the recent actions of Azerbaijan aimed at the escalation of situation?
Answer: This is yet another crime committed by Baku’s hereditary regime, which is founded on hatred towards neighbouring nation and the blood of its own population.
It is obvious that the refusal of Azerbaijan to establish investigation mechanism serves its intention to put the blame for its continuous provocations on the Armenian sides.
As long as Azerbaijan fails to implement its international commitments under 1994-1995 trilateral agreements between Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia on armistice and the ceasefire, refuses to implement the Vienna and St. Petersburg agreements aimed at the consolidation of the ceasefire regime and continues to initiate military provocations against Artsakh and Armenia, then the same leadership of Azerbaijan bears full responsibility for all the human casualties of those provocations, regardless of their nationality.
Question: How would you comment on the statement of the Foreign Ministry of Turkey with regards this situation?
Answer: During the last April aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan Turkey not only failed to condemn the targeting of civilian population of Artsakh by Azerbaijan, including killing of children, barbaric mutilation of elderly people, as well as the ISIS-style beheading of captured Armenian soldiers, but in fact, encouraged those war crimes.
On the other side Turkey declares that it condemns the casualties among the Azerbaijani civilian population suffered in the result of the provocation initiated by the same Azerbaijan, without even mentioning that the main reason for those casualties is the official Baku’s policy to use its civilian population as a human shield.
It seems that Turkey’s condemnation or sympathy is conditioned by the national identity, which is far beyond the remits of civilized commentary.