Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian armed forces have spent the past year strengthening their frontline positions and preparing for a possible new war with Azerbaijan, their chief commander said on Tuesday, reports RFE\/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun Radio).<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not waiting for [Azerbaijani] provocations, I\u2019m waiting for war,\u201d Lieutenant General Movses Hakobyan told a news conference in Stepanakert. \u201cNagorno-Karabakh\u2019s Defense Ministry and Defense Army were set up to wage war, and we are getting ready for that every day, every hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is a war, we will fight. If not, peace will be guaranteed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Hakobyan, Karabakh Armenian forces have dug up new trenches and carried out other \u201clarge-scale engineering work\u201d along their main Armenian-Azerbaijani \u201cline of contact\u201d east and north of the disputed territory. He also pointed out that they held their biggest ever military exercises last month.<\/p>\n
Armenia\u2019s Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan likewise stated in January that Armenian defense fortifications around Karabakh have been beefed up significantly in recent years. \u201cWe are maintaining the balance of forces vis-\u00e0-vis the Azerbaijani armed forces,\u201d Ohanyan insisted last month.<\/p>\n
Azerbaijan\u2019s leaders regularly threaten to forcibly win back Karabakh and Armenian-controlled territories surrounding it. They have also vowed to continue an ongoing military build-up fuelled by Baku\u2019s massive oil and gas revenues.<\/p>\n
Hakobyan said that instances of ceasefire violations by Azerbaijani troops increased by more than half in 2010, resulting in seven casualties among Karabakh Armenian soldiers. He claimed that there were 30 attempted Azerbaijani incursions across the frontline and that his troops thwarted all but one of them.<\/p>\n
The Armenian side also killed 41 and wounded 23 enemy soldiers in the course of the year, added Hakobyan.<\/p>\n
The Armenian death toll reported by the general is lower than the number of soldiers killed in non-combat incidents highlighting hazing and other chronic problems that have plagued the armed forces of both Armenia and Karabakh. Eleven of them were shot dead in three separate incidents that occurred at various Karabakh army units in the second half of this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese three incidents have had a quite serious negative influence on the Defense Army\u2019s image,\u201d admitted Hakobyan. He said the Karabakh army command is determined to \u201crectify the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hakobyan asserted at the same time that the overall number of various crimes committed by servicemen fell by 14 percent in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI\u2019m not waiting for [Azerbaijani] provocations, I\u2019m waiting for war,\u201d Lieutenant General Movses Hakobyan told a news conference in Stepanakert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}