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March 28
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A crisis has arisen, for which Azerbaijan is responsible, and Russia has the opportunity to resolve it because it is authorized to do so by the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020. Armen Grigoryan, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, said this in an interview given to Public TV on Monday.

"There are Russian peacekeepers at the Lachin corridor, and they play the main role there. The Lachin corridor is under the responsibility of Russian peacekeepers. With this move, Azerbaijan is trying to destroy the ‘architecture’ of November 9, which should concern the Russian Federation. We [i.e., Armenia] are taking steps to resolve the crisis, we present the problems publicly to our public", Grigoryan said.

According to Grigoryan, the invasion of the sovereign territory of Armenia by Azerbaijan on September 13, as well as the closure of the Lachin corridor, is also within the scope of the pressures on Armenia.

"All this is in a broad context. That broad context, so to speak, is in the context of supporting Azerbaijan, getting some road of the so-called corridor logic through the territory of Armenia. Armenia continues to resist this. By the way, I can clearly say that the escalation [of tension] of September 13 is also related to this. And, for the most part, this is the basis—or motive—of the entire crisis," Grigoryan stated.

When asked whether all this is for the corridor, the secretary of the Security Council of Armenia responded: “Also [for the corridor]. That is, [for] an extraterritorial corridor in the territory of Armenia. Naturally, that's what all this pressure in Lachin is about."

To the remark that Armenia’s authorities do not assist Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the Security Council secretary responded: "At the moment, the main mechanism is the diplomatic one. Armenia needs to continue to use diplomatic tools so that the crisis is resolved and free movement is carried out through the Lachin corridor."

Summing up the year, Grigoryan said that 2022 was very difficult for Armenia.

"There is pressure on Armenia from all sides, the whole year has passed under conditions of pressure for Armenia. The main task of the Armenian authorities was to resist those pressures. Since the amount [of those pressures] is large, it’s not only from one country, Armenia faced great difficulties in resisting these pressures. We continue to fight to stabilize the security environment around Armenia."

To the question whether Armenia strengthened its defense resistance this year, the Security Council chief answered: "It is not only related to Armenia's defense capabilities. You mentioned the ambassador's statement regarding the Union State [of Russia and Belarus]. Naturally, pressures towards Armenia also come from here. And whenever Armenia's democracy and democratic system resists it, it receives other kinds of pressures—in military form."

"Armenia is working with its partners to acquire weapons and other tools to protect its sovereignty. We have done certain work, we have certain results, but they are not enough. We continue this work, to have new tools. For example, the EU mission is one of such tools. It is not military, but it has such capabilities. Armenia also has military tools which it is trying to strengthen. This year, a large amount of work was done in that regard. Let's hope that the results will be as fast as possible," Grigoryan added.

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