Azerbaijan`s provocations aimed at stultifying progress in  negotiations - Armenia`s premier

ArmInfo.Azerbaijan's provocations are aimed at stultifying the progress made at the Washington talks,  May 1 to 4, Armenia's Premier Nikol Pashinyan stated at a Cabinet meeting on May 11. 

The fire is not so heavy now due to retaliation by Armenian forces. 

"Today's provocation is aimed at thwarting the trilateral  negotiations in Brussels this Sunday and the five- sided negotiations  in Chisinau, on June 1. Experience proves that Azerbaijan needs the  negotiation process only as a pretext for escalation and war, and the  only aim is to stultify any progress made during the negotiations. It  is taking place now as well," Mr Pashinyan said. 

He refuted the Azerbaijani defense office's claims about ceasefire  violations.  

"If escalating the situation is not Azerbaijan's predilection, any  local incident can be quickly resolved through information  verification and exchange with existing contacts and preventive  arrangements. This did not happen yesterday for a simple reason: no  incident was registered, and the Azerbaijani disinformation machine  fabricated the news in hindsight to aggravate the situation. And the  main goal of aggravating the situation, I repeat, is to nullify the  negotiation process and disrupt the course of further negotiations,"  Armenia's premier said. 

"But this is not the only goal, and the next one is to divert the  attention of the international and Armenian public from the fact of  setting up an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor, making to  forget the old crisis by creating a new one in a new place.

"This is the proven tactic of Azerbaijan. An attempt was made to  vanish the September aggression into oblivion by blocking the Lachin  Corridor with fake environmental activists. An attempt was made to  vanish the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh into oblivion by  crossing the state border of Armenia in the area of Tegh village. An  attempt was made to vanish the violation of the border in the area of  Tegh into oblivion by setting up a checkpoint in the Lachin corridor.  By escalating the situation in Sotk, they are trying to make to  forget about the installation of an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin  Corridor.

"Despite Azerbaijan's attempts, all these issues naturally remain on  our priority agenda. Active communication with the international  community on these topics should continue," Mr Pashinyan said.