A regular session of the RA government took place today. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a speech and referred to the terrorist operation carried out by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh on March 5 and its goals.

In his speech, Nikol Pashinyan noted.

"Dear participants of the government session,

Dear people,

With the Lachin Corridor closed by Azerbaijan for almost three months, we have a new escalation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Last Sunday, a unit of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan ambushed and attacked the police officers traveling from Nagorno Karabakh's capital Stepanakert to the villages of Old Shen and Mets Shen in Nagorno Karabakh in a UAZ passenger car. Three of the police officers were killed, and one was injured.

Expressing my condolences to the relatives and comrades of the fallen police officers, I want to emphasize that all three of them were born in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This circumstance gains particular importance in the background of a statement made by the President of Azerbaijan at the Munich Security Conference on February 18, 2023. And the president of Azerbaijan admitted in Munich that there is an international agreement, according to which they should discuss with the representatives of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh the issue of their rights and security. However, the President of Azerbaijan emphasized that they will have these discussions with the people born and living in Nagorno Karabakh.

On March 1, the first meeting of the representatives of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan took place at the headquarters of the peacekeeping troops of the Russian Federation in Nagorno Karabakh, and here, four days after that meeting, Azerbaijan undertook the described provocation, which can hardly be described as a terrorist act. The victims of that terrorist act were three citizens born in Nagorno-Karabakh with families: of three, two, and one child.

Dear attendees,

Azerbaijan is pursuing several goals with the March 5 terrorist attack. The first is aborting further negotiations with Nagorno Karabakh's representatives and creating the necessary background for a new military provocation. Regarding this, I would like to emphasize that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nagorno-Karabakh made a statement yesterday expressing readiness to continue the conversation with Azerbaijan. This is a significant statement.

Creating reliable international mechanisms for uninterrupted and institutional dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert is necessary. This can become an effective guarantee for realizing the above-mentioned international agreement.

The next goal of the March 5 provocation was to create false evidence that weapons and ammunition were transported from Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh. This topic is essential for Azerbaijan, especially after the February 22 decision of the International Court of Justice, when the court unequivocally and unequivocally rejected Azerbaijan's request to apply a temporary measure against Armenia, by which Azerbaijan accused Armenia of carrying out landmines. With that refusal, the groundless accusations against Armenia about landmines, which have been on all international platforms for several months, collapsed, which was extremely important.

And here, Azerbaijan tried to present the incident of March 5 as proof of the transfer of weapons and ammunition from the Republic of Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh, which did not work for two reasons.

First, the UAZ of the police was not going to Stepanakert but left Stepanakert. And secondly, the attack from Azerbaijan and also the trajectory of the UAZ car from Stepanakert to the scene of the incident were filmed by the cameras of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Nagorno-Karabakh, which made it evident that there was nothing else in the police car except for documents and a handgun.
The following important goal of Azerbaijan was the following: to use bloody terrorism to create new discourses and new information flows, which will cover an important fact: Azerbaijan is openly not fulfilling the decision of the world's highest court, the International Court of Justice, regarding the opening of the Lachin Corridor.

I would like to remind you that by a decision with binding legal force, the court obliged Azerbaijan to take all measures available to it to ensure the uninterrupted movement of citizens, vehicles, and cargo in both directions through the Lachin Corridor. The court emphasized that its decision creates a binding legal force for Azerbaijan. And here, this decision is not implemented for about 15 days, and this is solely the responsibility of Azerbaijan. On the contrary, Azerbaijan goes to new provocations to further aggravate the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Emphasizing all this, it becomes more and more urgent to send an international fact-finding mission to Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor to prevent the new unleashing of aggression by Azerbaijan and the precise preparations of Azerbaijan to subject the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to ethnic cleansing and genocide, which is expressed by not fulfilling the decisions of international courts, the Lachin Corridor keeping it closed, carrying out military provocations and acts of terrorism.

At the same time, it is necessary to reaffirm the desire to achieve peace in the region of the Republic of Armenia and the commitment to the peace agenda.

Thank you."