Azeri disinformation seeks to maintain tense atmosphere in Armenia, says lawmaker

The Azeri disinformation campaign seeks to create a tense atmosphere in Armenia, a senior lawmaker said Thursday.

Asked at a press briefing to comment, MP Andranik Kocharyan, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security Affairs, said that the Azeri fake news campaign is nothing new. He said that Azerbaijan has been generating disinformation whenever it needs.

“Azerbaijan’s goal is to maintain tension in Armenia, and they have succeeded, because now we are discussing it, but this doesn’t fit into the logic of our perceptions of the peace agenda, that’s the problem,” Kocharyan said.

He said the authorities are closely following the border situation and the military will act accordingly if a risk of escalation is seen. 

“Azerbaijan will always bring forward new preconditions, but they also announced that they no longer see any issue with the agreement. But that was a temporary reaction, because Pashinyan said he’s ready to sign it if there’s no problem. The international partners also reacted to this, welcoming it,” Andranik Kocharyan said.

If Azerbaijan doesn’t see any issues pertaining to the draft peace treaty, Kocharyan argued, then it ought to explain why it refuses to sign it.

Days after Armenia and Azerbaijan announced that the negotiations around the peace treaty terms have been successfully concluded, the Azerbaijani government started a massive disinformation campaign falsely accusing Armenia of firing at its military positions across the border. The accusations have been numerously denied by the Armenian military. Furthermore, the Azerbaijani authorities refused to provide any evidence in support of their accusations. The report on border shootings was also denied by the EU monitoring mission in Armenia. 

On March 20, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reiterated readiness to sign the peace agreement with Azerbaijan.