Military analyst Karen Hovhannisyan and media expert Nairi Hokhikyan told the media that the Karvachar basin was secretly handed over to Azerbaijan. They also warned that in November, the Ministry of Environment assured them that there was no problem and that the Azeris were not a threat. But there were two threats. At best, the enemy could change the course of the rivers by directing them to Azerbaijan, and secondly, they could poison the waters of the rivers and thousands of springs flowing to Armenia and Artsakh.
“We know that Arpa is the main source that feeds into Lake Sevan. They can simply change the source and stream bed of the Arpa River, and Lake Sevan would be deprived of its water supply from the Arpa-Sevan water pipeline. Second, Azerbaijan can poison these water sources. And this happened in the ‘70s and ‘80s; Azerbaijan poisoned the water resources supplying the population of Artsakh. During the Soviet era, when chemical production was not taking place in Artsakh, the population of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was considered one of the healthiest in the Soviet Union until the late 1970s, and oncological diseases became widespread there in the 1980s. As a result, the population of Artsakh was third in the entire USSR by 1988 in terms of the number of people who had oncological diseases. And there is proof that the water was poisoned. What stands in Azerbaijan’s way today for them to poison the waters leading to Armenia this time?” they said, expressing concern.
Military analyst Karen Hovhannisyan spoke more about the importance of Karvachar’s position for Armenia and Artsakh. “If necessary, if orders are given to liberate Karvachar, Armenia can do that in an hour or two. And Azerbaijan would not be able to hold onto Karvachar since it is artificially attached to Azerbaijan. According to my predictions, Karvachar will no longer be under Azeri control sooner or later. People in Azerbaijan understood during the first Artsakh war that Karvachar and Lachin would no longer be returned to them, and they did not even have any demands towards those reasons. Karvachar is not only the only safe and reliable road connecting Armenia and Artsakh. From a military point of view, the Omar and Mrav mountain ranges play a very important role for the players in the region in general. If Turkey has a military presence there and exercises control, Russia itself will be pushed out of the region. Taking all of this into consideration, even military experts do not understand the principles and priorities that guided our leaders in conceding those territories. From the beginning, the evil called the GPS has been problematic. Even phones from two different countries showed different borders, but there was a clear indication that everything should be based on the instructions of Azeri generals. It would not be a secret to say that they did the same in other areas- and openly. And if the residents and community leaders in specific settlements objected, they were simply not given weapons and were ordered to leave because the settlements did not belong to the Republic of Armenia.”
The speakers believe that the concession of Karvachar happened verbally and without any document, using the “let’s give it up quickly, and if they come under your control, who will say that it’s ours?” logic.
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Ashot Hakobyan
