Yerevan has already stated many times—and at the highest level—that it has no aggressive intentions towards any neighbor, recognizes the territorial integrity of all of them, and has no territorial claims. This is stated in the response by the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesperson to the media remark that the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, during his speech in Jabrayil, again reflected on the acquisitions of weapons and equipment by Armenia and issued threats, and asked how the MFA will interpret these statements?

The Armenian MFA spox added that it should be emphasized that the recent decision of the Constitutional Court of Armenia, by which the High Court verified and confirmed the conformity of the regulation of the joint activity of the Armenian and Azerbaijani border delimitation commissions with the Armenian constitution and denied all claims that the constitution contains territorial claims against any of its neighbors.

Armenia has also stated that although some of its territories are occupied by Azerbaijan, it has no task and agenda to return these territories by military means because the above-mentioned regulation of the joint activities of the border delimitation commissions provides all the opportunities to address and solve these problems peacefully and through negotiations.

As for weapons, the UN Charter reserves the right of self-defense to each and every country. Moreover, international law gives each and every country the obligation to protect its citizens. Armenia acquires weapons and equipment only in order to realize the right of self-defense and the obligation to protect its own citizens. Parallel to this, the amount of armament of Azerbaijan with offensive weapons are many times more than Armenia—as the president of Azerbaijan often states.

Now, considering all this, the question arises: why does Azerbaijan make the emphasis mentioned in the aforesaid question? Is it preparing aggression against Armenia? The Armenian MFA spox said she believes it is important to get the answer to this question because it will also help to assess the views expressed that Azerbaijan is going to use the upcoming COP29 conference in Baku as a smokescreen to launch a new military aggression against Armenia, and to distribute its political accountability among the foreign leaders who traveled to Baku to participate in COP29.

Baku's recent statements raise at least a number of important questions, the Armenian MFA spox said, and she rose two more of them:

  1. a) Does Azerbaijan refuse the agreements to recognize the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Armenia based on the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991? In this connection, the Armenian MFA spox emphasized once again that Armenia reaffirms its loyalty to the agreement reached with Azerbaijan on the basis of the Alma-Ata Declaration; that is, to recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty along the administrative borders of the former Soviet republics.
  2. b) Does Azerbaijan abandon the Peace Agenda? In this regard, the Armenian MFA spox said that Armenia reaffirms its commitment to the Peace Agenda and its readiness to sign the content of the already agreed peace with Azerbaijan as a peace treaty, about which the prime minister of Armenia announced in his speech at the recent 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The MFA spox said Armenia believes that instead of aggressive rhetoric, we should focus on resolving the issue of signing the peace treaty as soon as possible and negotiating on other issues not only in de facto, but also in de jure peace conditions.