“On September 19, Azerbaijan unleashed another large-scale aggression against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, aiming to complete its policy of ethnic cleansing,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said a few hours after Azerbaijani troops began shelling and attacking the region.
In a statement, the ministry brushed aside Baku’s claims that the military operation was launched in response to Yerevan’s failure to “withdraw the Armenian armed forces” from Karabakh.
“We again state that Armenia has no troops and military hardware deployed in Karabakh and all claims about [Armenian] land mining and sabotage activities are false and fabricated,” it said.
The international community and, in particular, the Russian peacekeeping forces in Karabakh should “take clear and unequivocal steps to end Azerbaijan's aggression,” added the statement issued during an emergency session of Armenia’s Security Council chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Over the past year, Pashinian has repeatedly ruled out any Armenian military intervention in Karabakh. In May this year, he publicly recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. His critics in Yerevan and Stepanakert accused him of emboldening Baku to step up the pressure on the Karabakh Armenians.
In a live Facebook broadcast aired after the Security Council meeting, Pashinian denounced unnamed “external and internal forces” that he said are trying to “draw Armenia into the military escalation” in Karabakh. He also said the Russian peacekeepers should “take measures” to halt the Azerbaijani offensive.
Yerevan said earlier this month that Baku is massing troops along the Karabakh “line of contact” and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in preparation for another war. The Azerbaijani side denied that while alleging growing Armenian “military provocations” in the conflict zone.
The Foreign Ministry statement said that the “false” allegations were aimed at justifying the Azerbaijani military action launched more than nine months after Baku blocked traffic through the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia.