Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian 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 Pashinian 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.
At the same time, the Armenian leader slammed Turkey, which during the July border skirmishes expressed its unequivocal support for Azerbaijan.
He reminded that one of the factors specified in the recently adopted new National Security Strategy of Armenia is “Turkey’s 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,” Pashinian 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.
Officials in Armenia and Turkey, the two neighbors with no diplomatic relations and a closed border, have exchanged accusatory statements on a number of regional affairs during the past two weeks.
The most recent spat concerned Ankara’s effort on the search of natural gas and oil in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean that Greece and Cyprus view as illegal and hostile.
Earlier, diplomats in Armenia and Turkey exchanged acrimonious remarks on the centennial of the Treaty of Sèvres, a post-World War I document viewed differently from Yerevan and Ankara.
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