In-between hours, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan has succeeded in making statements that are diametrically opposed to each other in terms of content.

The occasion was the capture of Armenian serviceman Artur Katanyan, who went astray and found himself in Azerbaijan due to foggy weather. Azerbaijani presses reported this, citing the country’s Ministry of Defense.

The first report literally reads as follows: “On June 8, a reconnaissance-sabotage group of the Armed Forces of Armenia infiltrated into the Azerbaijani side in the part of the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border in Lachin area, but was detected. Due to the alertness of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan, a member of the group, serviceman Artur Katanyan was caught, the other members of the group managed to go back, the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan reported on Tuesday afternoon.

According to preliminary data, the saboteurs had planned to mine the territories of Azerbaijan.”

Basically, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan didn’t have enough grounds to insist that the group of Armenian servicemen were going to cross the border. As the Ministry of Defense assured in the press release, “the other members of the group managed to retreat”; otherwise, the ministry would have acted with unverified, absurd and unreliable data and would mislead the co-chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russian peacekeepers, etc.

However, as it became clear, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan changes its opinion very quickly. A few hours later, it issued another statement on the transfer of the caught servicemen to the Armenian side.

“After an additional investigation, it became clear that serviceman of the Armed Forces of Armenia Artur Katanyan, who was caught in the territory of Lachin on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on June 8, 2021, wasn’t in the territory of Azerbaijan for sabotage. According to the information of the ministry, Artur Kartanyan (Katanyan according to the version of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia), getting lost on the road, crossed the Azerbaijani border. During the preliminary investigation, Artur Kartanyan behaved suspiciously and didn’t give a clear response, and this sparked doubts that he is a serviceman of a sabotage group of the Armed Forces of Armenia. Taking into account the aforementioned, A. Kartanyan was returned to the Armenian side. With this, by being humanistic once again, we ensure the return of a person who didn’t commit a crime against Azerbaijan,” the press release of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan states. It turns out that the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan starts out by making statements and accusing of heavy crime, and then it goes out on a limb to verify the statements.

We can guess the reasons why the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan admits that it is not well-established, if we recall that the direction of Lachin is in the zone of responsibility of the Russian side.