Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan on Monday said that Azerbaijan has threatened more attacks as official Baku continues to apply pressure to integrate Artsakh Armenians as part of Azerbaijan — a proposal that has been unequivocally rejected by Artsakh’s leadership.

Harutyunyan told a national security council meeting on Monday that during successive meetings with Azerbaijani representatives on February 24 and March 1, to discuss an end to the ongoing Lachin Corridor blockade, Azerbaijani officials threatened retribution if Artsakh authors did not agree to integrate as part of Azerbaijan.

Harutyunyan explained that on both occasions, the country’s representative to the talks, National Security Secretary Samvel Sharamanyan redirected the focus of the talks to the agreed upon agenda item, which included ways of ending the humanitarian crisis created as a result of the blockade.

“During the second meeting, the representative of Azerbaijan attempted to discuss political topics using the word ‘integration,’” Harutyunyan said. “Mr. Shahramanyan prevented that, saying that if political issues were to be discussed, it should be the topic of recognition of Artsakh’s independence by Azerbaijan. He added that they are not authorized to discuss political issues and cannot discuss such issues at this meeting.”

According to the Artsakh president, following that exchange the Azerbaijani side conveyed through its channels that either Artsakh accepts “the ‘integration policy,’ or there will be no solution to the existing problems, on the contrary, there will be harder and more extreme consequences.”

“We did not accept, we do not accept, and today I want to state again that it is not only the decision of the Security Council, but the overwhelming majority of our people understand that we will not deviate from our right to independence and self-determination,” declared Harutyunyan, who added that the people of Artsakh will have to face new developments in the “near future.”

“We choose to either continue the struggle that we have embarked on, or if there are such sentiments in the public that we should accept the proposal presented by Azerbaijan, then they have the opportunity to speak up within the scope of their civil rights and say that the path we have chosen is wrong, try to shape those sentiment, and form a new government in the country,” said a defiant Harutyunyan.

The security council session was being convened a day after Azerbaijani forces ambushed an Artsakh police vehicle, killing three police officers and critically injuring a fourth.

“We must realize the fact that we have to struggle for a long time and within the framework of that struggle there will be such situations, and we should take preventive measures. I have discussed our problems with the State Minister and today I want to instruct the Government by the decision of the Security Council to develop a program in the directions of food security and energy security, as we have to calculate all scenarios,” said President Harutyunyan.

“The tactics of Azerbaijan remain unchanged. Baku seeks to mislead the international community by using terrorist efforts and simultaneously spread official disinformation,” Speaker of Artsakh’s parliament said in a statement.

“Their [Baku’s] goal is to carry out ethnic cleansing by racial discrimination against the people of the Republic of Artsakh and forced expulsion of our people from their own homeland,” Tovmasyan added. “What happened is another manifestation of Azerbaijan’s consistent policy of provoking an escalation while it continues the blockade of the Republic of Artsakh.”

The Artsakh parliament speaker also emphasized last month’s ruling by the International Court of Justice, as well as remarks made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said during a visit to Baku last week that movement on the Lachin Corridor must be unimpeded and there cannot be checkpoint on the road, as has been advocated by Azerbaijan.

https://asbarez.com/artsakh-leader-warns-of-new-azerbaijani-attacks-as-baku-doubles-down-on-threats-against-armenians/