Armenian PM Slams Turkey Over Destabilizing and Destructive Stance

YEREVAN — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke of Turkey’s “destabilizing and destructive approaches” as he chaired a regular session of the country’s Security Council in Yerevan on Friday.

In his opening remarks Pashinyan addressed last month’s deadly escalation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, stressing that “the victorious battles in July came to demonstrate that there is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.”

“I consider it important to state that Armenia continues with its constructive stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Our position is that the conflict should be settled through peaceful talks,” he underscored.

“We adopted a new national security strategy at the previous session. It is noteworthy that shortly after that landmark decision we witnessed the expediency and viability of that document. It was recorded that in general, we had accurately assessed the security threats facing our country: the strategic assessment of our security environment was of high quality,” he said.

“I think the time has come for the Azerbaijani leadership to acknowledge this fact, since as I have mentioned on several occasions, if the Karabakh issue were to have a military solution, then the people of Artsakh might state that they had resolved it long ago,” he said.

At the same time, the Armenian leader slammed Turkey, which during the July border skirmishes expressed its unequivocal support for Azerbaijan, for its “non-constructive policy in our region and in the world, in general.”

“I think that Turkey’s destabilizing and destructive approaches are causing serious concerns to our partners in the Middle East, the Eurasian region and the European region. This is an agenda that has already been formed, and our future action should be the subject of substantive discussions in the Security Council, the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and today’s session will address this issue among other agenda items,” Pashinyan said.

“The most important record we have to make is that the Republic of Armenia is in a position to meet the emerging security challenges. At the same time, we must set ourselves the task of improving the country’s security environment every week, every month and every year,” the Armenian prime minister concluded.