President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian says it wasn’t by chance that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict escalated in late September. In an interview with RBK, Sarkissian assumed that Azerbaijan had been planning to unleash the war for many years.

“It began in September because the US was busy with pre-election debates, there was a coronavirus pandemic, and everyone was busy and fighting for their health. Besides, today we see Turkey’s tremendous influence on Azerbaijan,” Sarkissian said, adding that the current conflict traces back to many years.

“When Azerbaijan was spending billions of dollars to buy arms, the Armenians of Karabakh were building villages, schools, kindergartens and hospitals, even though there are analysts who say Nagorno-Karabakh needed to build bunkers and fortresses. Armenians believe in international relations,” he added.

Sarkissian also didn’t agree with the view that one of the factors was the increase of nationalist moods in Armenia after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power. “Armenians are patriotic, love their homeland and do everything they can for the future of their country,” he said.

Sarkissian also expressed the view that the roots of the current conflict trace back to 1920 when Nagorno-Karabakh was granted to the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic. “Azerbaijan raises the issue of territorial integrity. What territorial integrity? The one that the Soviet Union gave to Azerbaijan 70 years ago? The founders of the Soviet Union didn’t think about the subtleties of culture, history and religion. Nobody paid attention to the painful issues that existed in the entire territory of the USSR and were seen after its collapse,” he said.