In a Twitter post on Friday Pashinian charged that Aliyev does not honor the latest agreements reached at talks hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi on October 31.
He referred to the “threats” that he said the Azerbaijani leader used in his public remarks during a visit to the Azeri-controlled Karabakh town of Shushi (Susa) on November 8, a day that Azerbaijan calls Victory Day to mark the end of a 44-day Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.
“In his latest speech, president Aliyev flagrantly violated the agreement on refraining from the threat or use of force stipulated in the Sochi trilateral statement. Oddly enough, he accuses Armenia of violating mutually agreed statements!” Pashinian wrote.
In his speech to an audience of senior army officers Aliyev, in particular, accused Armenia of not honoring agreements reached as part of the 2020 ceasefire by refusing to provide a land corridor to Azerbaijan to access its western exclave of Nakhichevan and refusing to withdraw its forces from Karabakh territory – accusations that Armenia vehemently denies.
“What are the Armenian armed forces doing in Karabakh? Our patience is not infinite. And I want to once again warn that if this obligation is not fulfilled, Azerbaijan will take the necessary steps,” Aliyev said, without elaborating.
Addressing a summit of Turkic countries in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Friday, Aliyev categorically denied Armenia’s “unfair accusations” against Azerbaijan of a military aggression.
“We fought in our land, defeated the Armenian army and expelled it from our native land. Today we are still in our native lands in the direction of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. Azerbaijan and Armenia officially recognized each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in joint statements adopted in Prague and Sochi in October. This once again shows that the Karabakh conflict is now history,” the Azerbaijani leader stressed.
He added that the outcome of the 2020 Karabakh war “opens up new opportunities for the region.”
“Azerbaijan actively promotes the creation of the Zangezur corridor and carries out large-scale activities related to the corridor in its own territory. All the countries of the region will gain from the opening of the Zangezur corridor,” Aliyev said.
Armenia says it is generally interested in regional unblocking and is ready to open its territory for the transit of Azerbaijani passengers and goods, but it insists that it must maintain sovereignty over all routes passing through its territory. Official Yerevan calls unacceptable Azerbaijan’s position that a route through Armenia connecting it to Nakhichevan should have an extraterritorial status similar to the status of the Lachin corridor, a five-kilometer-wide strip of land controlled by Russian peacekeepers under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire that ensures the only land connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
The fresh bickering between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan comes amid what appears to be heightened tensions along the restive border between the two South Caucasus nations.
Yerevan said on Thursday that an Armenian soldier was heavily wounded by an “enemy shot” along the eastern section of the border with Azerbaijan, a claim denied by military authorities in Baku.
Armenia’s Ministry of Defense also said that Azerbaijani forces opened mortar fire at Armenian positions along the eastern border on the night of November 11.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense in recent days has also accused Armenia’s armed forces and ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh of truce violations.
Neither side has reported loss of life in the recent border incidents.