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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian gave an interview to Russian journalists on October 7.
‘’What started on September 27 was not a local clash like they were in the past. It’s a real war for which Azerbaijan and Turkey had long prepared. This war is also different by that apart from Azerbaijan and Artsakh, a third party, Turkey is directly involved’’, President Sarkissian said. ‘’The conflicting sides, Azerbaijan and Artsakh, have diverse approaches. Azerbaijan is saying that it’s liberating its territories. Who does it liberate from? If they are liberating from Armenians, there is another word for it. It’s not called territorial integrity, but another international term – ethnic cleansing. I mean they want those territories, but without Armenians.
So let’s call things in their real names. We have war which was unleashed by Azerbaijan and it should not be linked with territorial integrity. It’s just carried out for ethnic cleansing’’, President Sarkisisan said, emphasizing that the people of Artsakh are facing a dilemma, death or life.
Referring to Turkey’s aspirations to have a mediation role in the conflict settlement process, Armen Sarkissian said, ‘’How can a conflicting side be a mediator? It’s impossible. Mediatora are those that enjoy trust. How can Armenians of Artsakh, Armenia, Moscow or somewhere else trust Turkey? Everyone knows the history of our nation’’, the President said.
‘’What is Turkey saying? What is its justification for the explicit intervention? The first one is that they support their ethnic brothers. What does this mean? If we watch from the perspective of ethnic brotherhood, they have such brothers also in Central Asia, in the territory from Moldova to China. What does this mean? Does this mean that if anything happens in those regions, they will go and intervene in those conflicts to protect their ethnic brothers?’’, Sarkissian said.
President Sarkissian assessed Turkey’s other justifications as absurd, according to which Turkey wants to secure international energy infrastructures. ‘’If Armenia wanted, they would strike that gas and oil pipelines 20 years ago, preventing Azerbaijan from earning billions of dollars to buy weapons and fire not only at soldiers but also civilians. With his Turkey tries to justify the presence of its officers, generals and terrorists in Azerbaijan. In reality, it will end with their permanent presence in Azerbaijan, but this is already the business of leadership and people of Azerbaijan . They will not be satisfied only by ‘’securing’’ those infrastructures, they will start to control them, which means that entire Europe will become dependent on Turkey in terms of energy, which will become a country of huge influence’’, Sarkissian said, emphasizing that the only opportunity for returning to negotiations is that the third party, Turkey with its imperialistic aspirations, leaves the game.
Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan