“The absence of a desire by Azerbaijan to reach agreement and its everything-or-war posture are preventing progress in the negotiations,” he said.
Sarkisian reiterated in that regard Armenian claims that the most recent Armenian-Azerbaijani summit held in Kazan, Russia in June failed to yield a framework peace deal because of last-minute objections voiced by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. He said Aliyev thus walked away from “agreements reached at previous stages” of the peace process.
Azerbaijani officials have not explicitly denied such claims. But they insist that Yerevan is to blame for the lack of decisive progress in the peace talks.
Sarkisian went on to accuse Baku of promoting “Armenophobia” and warmongering. “Bellicose statements and war threats voiced by Azerbaijan have intensified and violations of the ceasefire regime, which continue to claim the lives of innocent people, have become more frequent,” he said.
Sarkisian also hit out at Turkey, deploring its refusal to unconditionally ratify Turkish-Armenian normalization agreements signed in 2009. “Turkey has thwarted the ratification and implementation of the 2009 protocols by all means,” he said.
Sarkisian further denounced Ankara for continuing to vehemently deny that the World War One-era mass killings and deportations of some 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide.
“The Genocide of the Armenians perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire has been recognized and condemned by many countries, parliaments, international structures and genocide scholars,” he said. “Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for the Turkish Republic, which continues to pursue the policy of denying this crime against humanity.”