Arman Babajanyan: Armenian opposition provokes Azerbaijan to launch military operations against Armenia

"The change of power in 2018 cannot be compared to the movement brought to the streets of Yerevan by "Armenia" and "Honor" blocs led by former presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, because the target of the current movement is the free choice of the people and the identity of Armenia," Arman Babajanyan, leader of the "In the Name of the Republic" party and former deputy of the Armenian parliament said.

"This movement fights with the voters inside the country, i.e. the voters in Armenia should no longer have the right to choose, as they are incapable of making a "qualitative" choice. This is the general logic," Babajanyan said, Caliber.Az reports quoting Armenian media.

Speaking about the way out of the situation proposed by the opposition (it proposes to form a provisional government that will hold new snap elections, but without the participation of the current authorities), Babajanyan noted:

"Initially, at least after the war, their struggle was based on a goal which has very important external and internal driving forces: to finally turn Armenia into a unit without statehood, because if today Armenia is able to talk to its partners, to discuss the most important challenges, this is due solely to its democratic image.

In this sense, this mass has one task - to crush Armenia and not to let it regain its identity and be able to take a position, which would lead to a balance of external forces in the region, thereby increasing its weight, ensuring active involvement in our conflict, including the European Union and the United States. This would allow us to maneuver freely and provide more favorable positions in the negotiations."

Commenting on the demands of the opposition, which mainly accelerates the Karabakh issue, the former deputy drew attention to the actions of Armenian war criminal ex-president Kocharyan.

"Look at his statements and actions: they surrendered Karabakh to Azerbaijan long ago and took power in Armenia. Now they are solving the problem of getting power again. Karabakh is only a means, an opportunity and an occasion. The flag and current status of Karabakh has absolutely nothing to do with Armenia. Armenia has no mechanism, means of political influence on Karabakh: only Russian-Azerbaijani agreements are in effect there.

This action of hoisting the Karabakh flag in Armenia says only one thing: they hoist the Russian flag there. Here is one more vicious issue: when the Soviet flag is waved in Karabakh and this action is carried out, the collective West's ideas about the Karabakh issue are completely changed.

The mayor of Stepanakert (Khankendi – ed.) also took part in this. Therefore, do you have any idea what challenges we are posing for Armenia? Before saving Karabakh, we generally thought that we have the most serious business in Armenia, we need to put the country on its feet, and before we want to "sing in Shusha again", we need to put Armenia in order to get such an opportunity.

I think there are very dangerous processes going on. They have several goals, and the most dangerous one is the direct provocation of Azerbaijan and Turkey to launch military actions already against Armenia.

This rhetoric of intolerance, the hatred towards the Turks can become a justified pretext to deliver a preventive strike on the territory of Armenia in order to show the international community that revanchists are trying to come to power in Armenia, stating that they intend to return Shusha, Hadrut and other territories.

Do you realize what will happen to the Armenian authorities after those actions, don't you? Do you understand that this can be instigated by external forces of this political segment in order to involve Armenia in the Union State membership process? That is, we will have nothing else to do if such a military escalation starts in the territory of Armenia...

You understand that with such rhetoric, our lawsuit, which is being considered in The Hague and which talks about hatred and intolerance, has already been nullified only because the political "alternative" elite in the center of Yerevan is pursuing a policy of using the word "Turk" with a negative connotation. Our opponents will take full advantage of this," Arman Babajanyan said.