STEPANAKERT. - The Azerbaijani side seems to not fully realize the seriousness of its actions, Head of Public Relations Depatrtment of the Artsakh Republic (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR) Artak Nersisyan told Armenian News – NEWS.am, referring to the threats of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry to strike an artillery blow on the NKR settlements.

"The Defense Ministry of the Republic of Artsakh has already refuted this statement of the Azerbaijani side. We, in turn have repeatedly noted that by accusing the Armenian side of violating the ceasefire regime the Azerbaijani authorities, in fact, try to conceal their responsibility for escalating the tensions on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan and undermine the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs aimed at the settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict exclusively by peaceful means.

As for the threats of Azerbaijan to shell the settlements in the depth of the territory of the Republic of Artsakh, this is an extremely irresponsible statement.

It should be noted that it is not for the first time that the Azerbaijani side makes such statements. Thus, back in April 2016, the Azerbaijani Defense Minister threatened to launch missile strike on Stepanakert, the capital city of Artsakh.

It seems that the Azerbaijani side does not fully realize the seriousness of its actions and statements, since any attempt to implement such threats will have quite predictable and extremely dangerous consequences, first of all, for Azerbaijan itself,” he noted.