“I do not rule out the need for a wider operation after a certain ultimatum of ours, for example, demanding that within 5-10 days all those who have weapons would hand them over to the peacekeepers. And later relevant Azerbaijani agencies could conduct a mop-up operation,” Tofig Zulfugarov said.
According to him, a favorable outcome would mean the terrorists suffering losses far exceeding those of the Azerbaijani side. This is the usual practice of punishment. Armenia will not be able to pass off Azerbaijan’s actions as “ethnic cleansing”, as the pinpoint strikes are being delivered only to the places of deployment of units of the Armenian armed forces in the territory of Azerbaijan, military infrastructure is destroyed.
“The localized counter-terrorism operation is Azerbaijan’s response to the Armenians repeatedly violating the ceasefire which was enforced by the Russian peacekeepers, among others. Numerous terrorist acts have been committed, bringing the number of Azerbaijani citizens killed by mines to over 70 and the number of wounded to over 300. Protection of its citizens is the primary duty of Azerbaijan, and to carry out this duty, our country will use any means that will ensure the elimination of terrorists in its territory,” the expert said.
Zulfugarov pointed out that Azerbaijan had made every effort to establish peace and had taken a number of concrete steps to change the logic of the conflict. Over two years have passed since these statements were made, but unfortunately there has been no noble gesture from the Armenian side. Besides, the Azerbaijani side took a number of steps to establish contacts that could facilitate different processes in various spheres of life. But the remnants of the occupation administration in the territory under the temporary control of the Russian peacekeeping forces continue to be financed by Yerevan, and the Armenian Ministry of Defense supported the separatists in every possible way (in financial, personnel and logistics issues) and continues to do so. And this regime did its utmost to obstruct the reintegration process.
“We have all seen various attempts to raise the population to ‘fight’, rallies were organized, then the armed junta staged the so-called ‘blockade’. Now we are seeing the next stage: the transition to armed resistance, to terror. This is essentially a continuation of Armenia’s military actions in the territory of Azerbaijan: strengthening positions, building lines of contact. All this shows that Armenia has not implemented the relevant provisions of the trilateral statement of November 10, 2020, effectively keeping these territories under occupation, as well as the territories that featured in the statement as enclaves. We should recall here that early parliamentary elections were held in Armenia after the 2020 war, and Pashinyan’s party won. Moreover, at the first meeting of the government it was stated that the government intended to continue the “Artsakh” policy in the new conditions, which is what we are seeing now. This “Artsakh” policy took the form of an armed confrontation. I think that appropriate pinpoint strikes will show the futility of military confrontation with Azerbaijan, and if anyone still has illusions in this regard, a powerful blow from our army should shatter them once and for all. If not, all those who remain in the territory of Azerbaijan as part of illegal armed groups, as well as Armenian military personnel that remain in the territory of Azerbaijan, will be eliminated,” Zulfugarov said.
Yana Madatova
Translated from Minval.az
