YEREVAN. – There is no need to make too much of, and convey an external shade to, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev’s recent statement concerning the country’s oppositional forces.  

Armenian Center for National and International Studies Director of Research, analyst Manvel Sargsyan, told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“Any authoritarian and criminal authorities would have done the same, as, for example, the statement by Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who called the people’s protests antidemocratic,” the political scientist noted.    

Reflecting on the claim with respect to the Azerbaijani oppositional forces’ “uniting” with the Armenians, Sargsyan stressed that the Azerbaijani authorities are attempting to portray Armenians as enemies, and, accordingly, those that collaborate with them are against the Azerbaijani state.    

“They are trying to show that those that are against the [Azerbaijani] authorities are carrying out a conspiracy against the state; this method is used for decades and centuries,” Manvel Sargsyan stated.