Reporters asked Deputy Minister of Defense Gabriel Balayan about how Azerbaijan views Minister Davit Tonoyan’s comments regarding increasing paramilitary troops in Armenia that can also carry out combat duties in an emergency as aggression, to which Balayan responded, “To consider this as aggression is naivety. Perhaps Azerbaijan did not look deeper in to what the Minister of Defense said. As the Prime Minister said, we can force peace upon them, and the minister’s comment also carries the same meaning.”
Reporters also asked about the ministry’s reaction to Azerbaijan referring to Davit Tonoyan as a terrorist, to which the deputy minister replied, “I do not have any worries about that. The whole world knows how different Azerbaijan’s statements and actions are from one another. They made a statement that would be appreciated by their citizens. Terrorism has a different meaning, both according to international law and to the laws of Armenia. There are no provisions that would consider the minister’s comments to be terrorism. Perhaps our colleagues are not familiar with international law.”
