Baku: Armenian defense minister's recent comments confirm Yerevan's occupation policy
By Akbar Mammadov
Armenian Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan’s recent speech once again confirms that Armenia is an occupying country, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry told Trend on June 9.
“One of the highlights of Tonoyan's speech was the recognition of the deployment of Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, on the line of contact, which once again officially confirms that Armenia is an occupying country,” the ministry said.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry noted that Armenian Defense Minister‘s "concept" of the Armenian army is absurd.
Commenting on Armenian Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan's views on the "concept of army building", the ministry said that this is a populist step aimed to keep his post in the light of the recent dismissal of high-ranking military officials in Armenia.
“It is absurd for a defense minister to make such a statement in a country where foreign debt exceeds the state budget and whose economy is shaped by foreign donations and ‘marathons’”, added the ministry.
Furthermore, the ministry noted that the ideas voiced by Tonoyan are practically impossible to implement in Armenia. “Neither Armenia's economy nor its military potential allows it”, said the ministry.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry also emphasized that these views of the Armenian Defense Minister addressed to the domestic audience are nothing but theoretical assumptions taken from various foreign military-strategic works.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.
The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Group’s efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97
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