Armenia fears Azerbaijani invasion `within weeks` - ambassador

ArmInfo.The Armenian ambassador-designate to the EU says his country expects Azerbaijan to  invade "within weeks."

Azerbaijan will follow up the capitulation of Nagorno-Karabakh with  an attack on Armenia itself, Tigran Balayan says.

In an interview with Brussels Signal, Mr Balayan said that  Azerbaijani promises to respect international law are hollow.

"We are now under imminent threat of invasion into Armenia", he said.

The central problem was that President Ilham Aliyev has not yet met  any concrete repercussions for what the Armenian ambassador-designate  said were his expansionist plans.

There would be no stopping Azerbaijan if it "will not be confronted  with very practical steps taken by the so-called collective West".

This follows the Azerbaijani attack on Nagorno-Karabakh in  mid-September. The region was an enclave of ethnic Armenians within  Azerbaijani territory, but was ruled by the Armenia-backed breakaway  Republic of Artsakh.

Following what Azerbaijan dubbed a "counter-terrorist operation",  Nagorno-Karabkah capitulated and there followed a mass exodus of the  over 100,000 Armenians living there.

Now Armenia claims that President Aliyev intends to come for more.  Specifically the Zangezur corridor, which separates Azerbaijan proper  from its Nakhchivan enclave.

While the Azerbaijani Ambassador told Brussels Signal that his  country has no designs on Armenia's internationally-recognised  territory, Balayan believed this was bluff.

He cited President Aliyev's previous statements that Azerbaijan would  "chase the Armenians like dogs".  Aliyev is also reported by Reuters  to have claimed the Zangezur was historical Azerbaijani land in a  recent meeting with Turkey's President Erdogan.

Balayan told this website that there were very "practical" measures  the EU could take to confront Azerbaijan and President Aliyev.

He suggested the EU must give Aliyev a deadline to withdraw his army  from the Armenian border region, and to suspend Azerbaijan's  visa-free travel agreement with the EU if he failed to comply. He  also said that "individual sanctions can send a clear message."

This follows a similar resolution made by the European Parliament on  October 5th.

MEPs called on the EU to suspend its current energy and visa  agreements with the EU.