On 7 August, Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in response to the one issued earlier by the Azerbaijani MFA on Prime Minister’s Nikol Pashinyan’s speech from 5 August (Caucasus Watch reported), reported aysor.am. According to the statement, the Republic of Armenia “remains the only guarantor for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh in ensuring their security, their freedom and inalienable human rights, including the right to development and the right to self-determination.” Armenia regrets the “incapacity of the authorities of Azerbaijan to understand the context and the content” of the speech of the Armenian Prime Minister, of 5 August 2019, which addresses the pan-Armenian agenda of advancing unity, solidarity, development and prosperity for Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Diaspora.

“Furthermore, the Prime Minister of Armenia has repeatedly stated that any viable option for the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be acceptable to the peoples of Karabakh, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The authorities of Azerbaijan, however, have been consistently failing to reciprocate willingness and capacity for a solution acceptable to all parties. Azerbaijan continues to adhere to its maximalist demands, accompanied with the threat or use of force, consistently violated the ceasefire regime, defies the calls of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to consolidate an atmosphere conducive to peace and reject any solution acceptable to all parties,” read the statement.

Shortly after, the next response of the Azerbaijani MFA came. “...We believe that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, which carried out military aggression against Azerbaijan, occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh region of our country and the adjacent areas with the illegal use of force, committed total ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population in these territories and the act of genocide in Khojaly, is the last among the ones that might even pretend to try to accuse Azerbaijan of failure to adhere to rules of civility and decency, as well as intolerance.

In addition, the Armenian Foreign Ministry is trying to assure that the Azerbaijani authorities were unable to understand the context and content of N. Pashinyan’s speech in Khankendi [Stepanakert], dedicated to “unity, solidarity, development and prosperity” for Armenia, Karabakh and the Diaspora. Now, by a similar clumsy explanation of its “noble intentions” the Armenian Foreign Ministry already, following the Prime Minister of this country, has actually directly confessed the conduct by the official Yerevan of annexationist policy towards the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan,” the statement concluded.