Intimidation operation or real threat? Since early September, significant troop movements from Azerbaijan have been reported across the Armenian border. Authorities in Artsakh, the Armenian-populated enclave in Azerbaijan, and Armenia’s Defense Ministry released images of military equipment and artillery circulating in Vayots Dzor, Gegharkunik and Syunik regions on Tuesday. .
On social networks, various testimonies and videos posted by Internet users also report movements around Artsakh, a region with a majority Armenian population located in Azerbaijan.
Experts from the European Union, sent to the border to observe the tensions, themselves declared on September 5 to have been “witnesses with concern to the increase in tensions and crossfire in the border areas”. “We have reported on the situation in Brussels,” assured the observers.
Azeri fire at the border has increased in recent days. On September 1, three Armenian soldiers were killed and another injured in the border region of Sotk. This attack came two days after a French humanitarian convoy led by elected officials tried to brave the blockade that condemns the road to Artsakh. An initiative that Baku described as “interference”. “Taking into account the September 1 aggression and the increase in the dissemination of false information by the Ministry of Defense of this country, it is obvious that Azerbaijan is preparing for a new war”, says a source Armenian diplomacy.
On the bodies of Azeri military vehicles, a white V crossed out has been drawn, a symbol that some observers interpret as a map of Armenia separated from its southern region, the Syunik.
“The world can no longer turn a blind eye to Aliyev’s ethnic cleansing project in Nagorno-Karabakh”, reacted on Twitter the deputy of Aix-en-Provence Anne-Laurence Petel, president of the friendship group France -Armenia to the National Assembly.
If Baku has made no communication on any movements, the Azerbaijani media are increasing their references to “Armenian terrorism” which would threaten its neighbor. On Tuesday, the Press Council of Azerbaijan accused the BBC of “promoting Armenian separatism” after its publications on the blockade of the Lachin corridor. Since last December, the 120,000 inhabitants of Artsakh have been deprived of the 400 tonnes of food which arrived every day from Armenia. Western media, according to Baku, broadcast “false sentimental scenes which are contrary to the reality of the current situation”, with the aim of “sowing confusion in the world community”.
“Today the West launched a ‘crusade’ against Azerbaijan via YouTube, Facebook and other social networks,” former Finance Minister Fikret Yusifov accused Tuesday in an interview with Yeni Musavat, a media outlet. close to the state. “As a state and a nation, we have to deal with it. We need to find ways to limit or completely stop the spread of these social networks in Azerbaijan”.
The last open conflict between the two countries dates from 2020. At the end of a 44-day war, a ceasefire concluded under the aegis of Russia had allowed Azerbaijan to take control of 70 % of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region populated mainly by Armenians and remained autonomous after the fall of the USSR in 1991.
