The President of Artsakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, made a statement during a live video. He said that intolerance is an even larger threat to the Armenian nation. He called upon Armenians to unite, and he promised to take specific steps after discussing them with the public in the coming days.
He said that Armenia had entirely lost control over the city of Shushi on November 7th. He emphasized that this was the most difficult night of his life. The President of Artsakh said that they were forced to make this decision yesterday.
“Over the course of 43 days, we lost the Fizuli region, the Jabrayil region, the Qubatlu region, the Zangelan region, the majority of the Hadrut region, parts of the Martuni and Askeran regions, and Shushi. Battles were taking place only 2-3 kilometers away from the gates of Stepanakert, but if military operations continued with the same force, we would’ve lost all of Artsakh within a matter of days. We would’ve had many more casualties because moving the hostilities somewhere behind the frontline would’ve caused irreversible consequences on the frontline, especially for the conscripts who fought heroically over the past 40 days. I do not want to say what would’ve happened to the soldiers in the Askeran and Martuni regions if we lost Stepanakert. There might’ve been some opportunities in terms of being surrounded. It seemed as though we were able to defend ourselves with anti-aircraft from the UAVs, but over the past two days, they used new technology, and they were able to cause huge losses to our forces. We had major losses of human life over the past few days in the Martuni region. And all of those losses were due to UAVs. It was unsuccessful. We all are responsible for the fact that it was unsuccessful- yes, all of us- because we knew that our army needed that, and that problem was there. All of us who held official positions over the past few decades knew that. Overall. I believe that there will be evaluations in terms of the army’s conditions. The army’s morale was extremely low, the army was on the frontlines with hemorrhoids, dysentery, exhaustion, and COVID-19 for 43 days. We did not have the opportunity to change, rest, and heal. There were new hostilities every day, casualties, wounded, and shelling. And at the same time, we were able to resist the armed forces of 8 countries. Surely we did not only fight Azerbaijan. It wasn’t only Turkish officers and military equipment on the battlefield. This was what Armenian volunteers and soldiers were fighting against.”
Arayik Harutyunyan emphasized that we would’ve had the opportunity to make a better decision, but we needed unity in Armenia, Artsakh, and among the Armenian people in order to do that. “Our biggest enemy was division and panic. National issues still remain ahead.”
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The President of Artsakh also noted that there have been discussions over the past few days, and everyone agreed to even a temporary ceasefire. “Everyone knew that we didn’t have the resources, but they believed that any documents should not violate our sense of dignity, which is why we understand that it was unavoidable to agree to a ceasefire. We were forced to do that. I repeat, everything still lies ahead.”
Gohar Hakobyan
