Yerevan/Mediamax/. Former President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan stated that “Baku’s militant rhetoric lead to actual actions with transition from diversion activity to the military solution of the conflict”.

The former President made this statement in the interview published on 2rd.am.

“What happened should have been expected. Increase of military potential and militant rhetoric of Baku in recent years lead to actual actions with transition from diversion activity to the military solution of the conflict. Most likely, Azerbaijan underestimated combat readiness of NKR Defense Army, as well as great willingness of Armenian and Karabakh people to resist the aggression. The price for the military operation and its growing scale must have become unacceptable for Baku, and so the war was stopped. I would not call it a victory or a defeat.

Azerbaijani Forces took several positions of ours, but did not solve any strategic goals. The euphoria of military victory in Baku is absolutely unfounded. As for us, we did not restore what we lost, which isn’t optimistic regardless of how much we lost. Moreover, casualties of the 4 days of military actions are unusually and unacceptably high for us. Thus, we cannot speak about a moral victory too. However, it became evident that the conflict cannot be solved by force even with a disturbed military balance, and this can actually boost the frozen negotiation process,” said the former President.

“It was no secret that Azerbaijan was better armed, but it’s one thing to know and another to face it on a battlefield. The irony is that Armenia, a member state of CSTO with a Russian military base on its territory, was notably poorer armed. The public’s pained reaction is understandable. Everyone wanted to believe that the military alliance with Russia at least would guarantee a military balance, i.e. security of Armenia and Karabakh (parity in the quality of arms was maintained until realization of the agreement between Baku and Moscow, signed in 2011).

Everything turned out to be much more complicated. Obviously, escalation of the conflict is not beneficial for Russia, as it would have to make a hard choice between its duty to Armenia as a mediator and a military ally, and its desire for closer cooperation with Azerbaijan. The new weapons supply to Baku disturbed the balance, making the possibility of such a scenario highly likely.

Why it happened and whether it could have been avoided are the questions that will be disputed, assumed and speculated for a long time coming. Armenia should have prevented realization of the contract at the least, - through limiting nomenclature, or synchronizing the realization with similar supplies to Armenia. There were enough arguments for that. I do not know how actively the authorities tried to do that and why they failed, so I won’t comment. At the same time, we weren’t ready with a number of military equipment items, which we could have purchased without intergovernmental agreements. The rival army has been giving us trouble in nighttime for over two years, because it was accordingly equipped. What prevented us from equipping our army with night vision devices, thermal cameras, night vision sights, communications gear, and individual protection equipment for reserve forces? It isn’t normal when a commander directs the battle with a cell phone, when a platoon post has no night vision sights, or enough armor vests for servicemen of reserve forces. We should fill the gaps immediately, and obviously, it’s already being done. But we should do it on the institutional level, and not in the “all together’ way, as it was in the beginning of Karabakh movement. Volunteers should not go to the front spontaneously, but be directed to units by military commissariats, with their military expertise taken into account,” said Robert Kocharyan.

Former President of Armenia stated that “actions of certain CSTO states are essentially incompatible with our joint participation in a military alliance”.

“Obviously, we cannot change the interests of those countries, but we should make real conclusions for ourselves. We should understand what CSTO is, and avoid high expectations. CSTO is an asymmetric structure, standing on Russia’s military and political interests separately or in connection with those of every participating state. There is no prominent, integrated general interest. What are our mutual military and political interests with Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan? It’s naïve to think that joint membership in CSTO can be stronger than Kazakhstan’s established relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan. That is why we should consider CSTO in the context of military, political, and technical cooperation with Russia. That is reality, and we should proceed from there,” said Robert Kocharyan.