The recent incident along the Sevlich segment of Armenia’s border in the Syunik Province was a provocation staged by Azerbaijan, the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said today (13 May) at a cabinet meeting.
"What happened [on the border] was a pre-planned provocation, because the Azerbaijanis have obviously falsified maps with which they want to prove that they are inside the borders of Azerbaijan", he stated. "Azerbaijani armed forces must withdraw to their starting positions, that is, the positions from which they started advancing, the positions where they were on May 10”, Pashinyan declared.
According to TASS news agency, the Armenian Defence Ministry said earlier that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces had attempted to carry out "certain activities" in the Syunik Province’s border district in the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday (12 May). The ministry added that the Azerbaijani troops halted their activities following some steps taken by Armenian forces. According to Pashinyan, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces had crossed Armenia’s border, moving 3.5 kilometres into the country.
During today’s (13 May) meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization's (CSTO) Permanent Council – of which Russia and Armenia are members – Armenia’s Ambassador to the CSTO, Viktor Biyagov, raised the situation. A statement by the CSTO reports that the organisation’s Secretary General, Stanislav Zas, has discussed the situation by telephone with Armenia’s minister of defence, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, and minister of foreign affairs, Ara Ayvazyan. The statement ends:
“The CSTO is closely following the development of the situation in the border regions of the Syunik region of Armenia. As the situation develops, if necessary, actions will be taken under the provisions of the Collective Security Treaty and the CSTO Charter.”