Armenian ex-president: US, France, Russia have no impact on Azerbaijan, Türkiye

Former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan has ruled out any impact of the USA, France and Russia on Azerbaijan and Türkiye.

He made the statement at a press conference in Yerevan on September 28 to comment on the current situation in Armenia, security issues, international relations and other topics. He also commented on ways how to get out of the current situation, Caliber.Az reports citing the Armenian media.

"We need to review the security architecture. We must very soberly assess which factors or which states can influence Azerbaijan or Türkiye, and we must assess that the restraining levers of influence by Russia and the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organsation] on Azerbaijan are significantly weakened today. The CSTO does not have the ability to influence. All CSTO countries have good relations with Azerbaijan, both at the interstate and individual level, than Armenia, and to think that the CSTO can take any action is simply geopolitical insanity.

It is obvious that Russia is doing everything possible to prevent a conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but these will be political and diplomatic steps. Today Russia has allied relations with Azerbaijan, and to think that in this situation Russia can launch military actions against Azerbaijan is simply nonsense, nothing like this will happen. And from this point of view, a good situation is being created for the formation of anti-Russian sentiments in Armenia.

Today, the control panel for anti-Russian sentiments is in the hands of [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev, when he wants to turn it on, and we will again have losses of territories and human resources. Of course, this is connected with the Russian-Ukrainian war, and with the fact that today neither Russia, nor the United States, nor France has such an impact on Türkiye and Azerbaijan. No one has any impact on [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan at all and, I must say, he gives a master class on protecting national interests. Ignoring everything, all kinds of pressure, he does what he thinks is right in the national interests of Türkiye.

It is necessary to take decisive steps, realising that yes, it is necessary to convince Russia, maybe, to build other relations... We are not talking about withdrawing from the CSTO, this would be another nonsense, there were agreements within the framework of the CSTO, which are very important for the purchase of weapons and ammunition, in order to equip our security system with new components," Kocharyan noted.