“I assess the situation along the border as relatively stable,” Lieutenant-General Eduard Asrian told the press. “There is no buildup of enemy troops in the border areas.”
Azerbaijani President Aliyev threatened earlier this month to put an end to “fascism” in Armenia and to forcibly open a land corridor through Armenia’s strategic Syunik region to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. He also reiterated multiple preconditions for signing a peace deal with Armenia.
Armenian pundits have construed that as a further indication that Azerbaijan is gearing up for a large-scale invasion of Armenia. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has likewise said that Baku may be preparing the ground for “unhindered aggression” while signaling more concessions to his country’s arch-foe.
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, expressed concern over Azerbaijan’s renewed threats of military action against Yerevan. He pointed to “intensive” military exercises” conducted by the Azerbaijani army and arms shipments to Baku.”
“Citizens should be concerned because the enemy continues to occupy Armenia’s sovereign territory,” said Asrian. “We are accomplishing tasks set before us. Under our political leadership, we are also going down the path of peace, the path of border delimitation and demarcation. And the armed forces continue to develop, improve and recruit.”
Asrian spoke at Yerevan’s Yerablur military cemetery where he attended official ceremonies to mark the 33rd anniversary of the official establishment of the Armenian armed forces. Armenian opposition leaders also laid flowers there on the occasion. They used it to again claim that Pashinian’s administration has done little to rebuild the Armenian army since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and that his appeasement policy only sets the stage for another conflict.
“Their peace agenda is not realistic,” said Seyran Ohanian, a former defense minister leading the parliamentary group of the main opposition Hayastan alliance. “It’s a ruse for the Armenian people. In reality, the conflict has deepened further and the people of Artsakh have been subjected to genocide.”
“Under the guise of reform, Armenia's rulers have now begun a bizarre process called a ‘transformation’ of the army, which in reality is an attempt to mold the army into their own image as the final act of destroying it,” former President Serzh Sarkisian charged in a statement. “This must be stopped at all costs.”