YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has commented on the enlistment of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s son Heydar Aliyev into military service.

The PM was speaking today at the campaigning rally of My Step bloc for the upcoming Yerevan City Council election.

Addressing the conscription of Aliyev’s son, the Armenian PM said that the people of Azerbaijan should demand their leader for his son to serve at the border.

“In the past three days the soldier serving in the Armenian Armed Forces [shot] three Azerbaijanis not because they liked it, but because they were firing at the direction of [Armenian] border villages at the orders of Azerbaijan.

The people of Azerbaijan should demand that Ilham Aliyev’s son serves in the border, and that’s when we will see what kind of a situation will be created at the border. No mother of any Azerbaijani can accuse us, because we are taking counteractions only when they themselves act like this,” Pashinyan said.

According to Azerbaijani news media President Ilham Aliyev’s son Heydar Aliyev has been enlisted to military service in one of the state security service bases of the country.

In a late July interview to Russian media, Nikol Pashinyan was asked by Echo of Moscow host Alexey Venediktov why he has sent his son Ashot Pashinyan to serve in Karabakh. Pashinyan answered by saying that his son volunteered to serve there.

“Many interpret this as an aggressive gesture, but on the contrary it is a peace-loving step. We all understand that when I send my son to Karabakh I don’t want war to start there. God forbid my son or the sons of my countrymen, or the sons of ordinary Azerbaijanis die. It isn’t reasonable. I don’t want it. I would be glad if Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would also send his son to serve there. If his son would also serve there, I would accept it as a peace-loving step. We would all be convinced that Mr. Aliyev too doesn’t want his son to die,” Pashinyan had said in the interview.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan