ArmInfo. The Armenian foreign policy leadership condemned Turkey's attempts to provoke instability in the region.
So, in the Foreign Ministry of Armenia, reacting to the statement of the Turkish Foreign Ministry in connection with the aggravation of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border, in particular, they stated: "On July 12, the Foreign Ministry of Turkey issued a statement, in which the Turkish side not only expressed its unconditional support to Azerbaijan, in fact justifying the use of force by Azerbaijan on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, but also disseminated utterly false and misleading information. This provocative attitude by Turkey and its groundless accusations against Armenia attest to the fact that this country has not been acting as a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, but as a party, involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This fact makes even more impossible for Turkey to play any role in the issues related to the Nagorno- Karabakh conflict, within international, and particularly the OSCE framework. Turkey's attempts to intervene in the conflicts in its neighboring regions has already undermined the security and stability thereon. We strongly condemn Turkey's attempts to instigate instability in our region, and affirm that Armenia will continue to consistently work towards maintaining and strengthening the international and regional security, while closely cooperating with international partners to this end."
To note, yesterday at about around 12:30 pm, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, for reasons unknown to the Armenian side, attempted to violate the state border of the Republic of Armenia in the Tavush direction by <UAZ> car. After the Armenian side warned them, the enemy troops left the "UAZ" car, returned to their positions. At 1:45 pm, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, using artillery fire, tried to capture the Armenian stronghold, but were thrown back by the fire, incurring loss of manpower. There are no losses from the Armenian side. At the evening, the enemy resumed shelling of Armenian positions, in the direction of a strong point that had not previously been captured. All night the Azerbaijani Armed Forces fired intensively using 82 mm mortars and tanks at the aforementioned strong point. As it became known, in the morning, after two or three hours of calm, the enemy resumed provocative actions at the Armenian- Azerbaijani state border in the Tavush direction, and continued shelling of Armenian positions.
The Armenian side warned the enemy that all responsibility for further aggravation of the situation would fall on the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan. According to an official statement of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan, during the incident yesterday, three servicemen of the Azerbaijani army were killed and four were injured. But, the media is already circulating information about 17 killed Azerbaijani soldiers.
Due to the aggravation of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, caused by the events of July 12 this year by clashes in the Tavush direction, the CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas initiated holding of the emergency meeting of the CSTO Permanent Council on July 13. This is stated in the message of the CSTO press service.
It is also worth noting that in this situation, the Turkish side took an active position, expressing unconditional support for Baku, which were reflected in two statements by the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Moreover, the second statement was made by the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on the air of TRT Haber. He noted that Turkey, using all the opportunities, will support Azerbaijan. "Let Armenia come to its sense," Cavusoglu said.