French courts annulling friendship declarations with Artsakh’s settlements-Group for Alternative Projects issues statement

French courts are rendering decisions annulling the Declarations of Friendship signed between various French cities and settlements of Artsakh one after another.

This is stated in the statement issued by member of the Group for Alternative Projects Vahe Hovhannisyan.

“While we Armenians waste the mind of the State in courts and persistently make up a conflict with Artsakh, there are historic events that are taking place around us and are not on our agenda, and we pretend that they don’t concern us.

Yesterday Georgia officially announced that it is expanding military cooperation with Turkey and Azerbaijan and that it will be joining the Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises planned to be held this year.

During a meeting held in the Azerbaijani city of Gabala, the defense ministers of all three countries stated that the mechanism for trilateral military cooperation will help increase stability and security in the region.

In essence, a new regional military format was announced yesterday, and Armenia was unable to prevent this since it was busy with other important things.

Armenian presses are not covering this, the issue is not a part of political discourse, it is not being considered by the National Assembly, the official Yerevan has no response, and the political opposition is not sounding the alarm. We don’t know whether Armenia had discussions and consultations with Russia over this topic or not. Is Armenia calculating the risks? Is it calculating the next steps that are part of the military cooperation that Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia are deepening? It is highly suspected that this is just the beginning. What will Armenia’s counteractions be?

Armenia can’t overlook the new reality and the new challenge. The realities in the region have begun to change at a rapid pace. To what extent is Armenia ready?

It is clear that the court verdicts imposed on us, the creation of a committee to investigate the circumstances behind the Four-Day Artsakh War of April 2016, the persecutions against triumphant military commanders, the repressions against military generals of Artsakh and the encouraged cold attitude towards Artsakh are essentially weakening Armenia’s positions.

Alongside this, there is a quite dangerous and incomprehensible process unfolding in France, which is a co-chairing country of the OSCE Minsk Group. French courts are rendering decisions annulling the Declarations of Friendship signed between various French cities and settlements of Artsakh one after another. It is clear that this is a well-organized campaign that contains risks for the future. Who is dealing with this matter in Armenia — the legal elite or the diplomatic elite? Is anyone aware of this process? Has anyone calculated that this may become a precedent for other EU member states and that there will be a new level of blockade against Armenia?

The domestic affairs in Armenia, which are becoming more and more intolerable every day, are essentially weakening our positions. We are kidding ourselves, if we think that we will be able to counterbalance the challenges of the past and present by posting live videos on Facebook and declare slogans. Getting to work is simply the current imperative. Only a working Armenia can resist and find resources for development, and ruling out aggression and sharp internal conflicts and revising viewpoints on several major topics are the preconditions for work,” the statement reads.