Moscow "extremely dissatisfied” with Pashinyan’s latest statements

A diplomatic source in Moscow told TASS about it.

“Moscow is extremely dissatisfied with the latest public statements of the Armenian leadership, including the statements of the Armenian Prime Minister made in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the August 31 commentary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry. Moscow considers them as unacceptable in tone and content, and aimed at shifting the responsibility for its own miscalculations and mistakes onto Russia,” the interlocutor of the agency said.


“In fact, Russia is being artificially pushed out of the South Caucasus, with the use of Yerevan as a means for realization of this goal. As Armenia’s closest neighbor and friend, Russia does not intend to leave the region. However, this should be a two-way street: Armenia should not have become the West’s tool for pushing Russia out either,” the source told TASS.

The agency’s interlocutor said that the thesis that “the Karabakh conflict has never been a territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan” is false.

“The root cause of the confrontation is the issue of the status of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijani SSR, while Yerevan has for a long time kept under its control a part of the Azerbaijani territory,” the interlocutor said.


At the same time, he noted that the armed confrontation in the fall of 2020 was largely a consequence of rash and provocative steps of the Armenian leadership, including statements that “Karabakh is Armenia” and participation in the inauguration of the NKR President in Shushi.

“This has largely devalued the agreements reached by the parties through the OSCE Minsk Group. If not the intervention of Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally, the outcome of the hostilities would have been even more dire. Already three weeks after the start of the war, the Russian President urged the Armenian Prime Minister to agree to a ceasefire, which would have helped to avoid further casualties and ensure peace and tranquility on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the source from the Russian Foreign Ministry said.