Armenia’s Foreign Ministry expresses ‘bewilderment’ over Baku’s reaction to defense cooperation between Yerevan, Paris

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YEREVAN, June 19. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Foreign Ministry is ‘bewildered’ over Baku’s reaction to the defense cooperation between Armenia and France, the Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

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“It is the sovereign right of any country to have a military armed with modern equipment. The Republic of Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity [...] of all its neighbors. Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed at the highest level that they recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Protocol. The Republic of Armenia adheres to this principle and has no ambitions beyond its internationally recognized territory of 29,743 square kilometers,” the statement said.

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The Ministry also noted that “Azerbaijan's practice of predicting regional escalations on every occasion is thought-provoking and comes to justify the analyzes made by a number of centers that Azerbaijan will do everything to abort the process of concluding a peace agreement with Armenia in 2024.” The statement also conceded that Azerbaijan might launch a new aggression against Armenia after the COP29 summit, scheduled to be hosted by Baku in November.

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In the statement, the Ministry drew the attention of the international community to the fact that Baku had left Yerevan's recent proposal to conclude a peace treaty within 1 month without a response. The Armenian Foreign Ministry also called on Baku to withdraw its troops from over 30 settlements that the Azerbaijani military occupies in Armenia proper.

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