YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—The Armenian Defense Ministry has announced its decision to draft first-order reservists amid continuing tensions along the border with Azerbaijan in which at least five Armenian soldiers were killed and six wounded since late July.
In a statement released on Friday the ministry said that three-month training assemblies for reservists will commence on August 25 and during this training they may also be involved in combat duty, if necessary.
The ministry did not say exactly how many people will be mobilized, but reported that as many as 110 vehicles will be used for transportation purposes during the training assemblies.
It is clear from the ministry’s press release that the announced draft concerns reservists – privates, non-commissioned officers and officers – who are aged below 35 and served in the army for at least a year or have combat experience regardless of the length of service.
“These citizens will be considered military personnel for the entire period of their participation in training assemblies, will enjoy all the social benefits provided for military personnel, their civilian jobs will be retained for them, and they will also be paid for each month of training. Participation in trainings will be counted as a period of military service or general work experience according to the calendar,” the Defense Ministry said, warning that reservists evading the draft will be prosecuted.
Armenia suffered a defeat in last year’s war against Azerbaijan in which nearly 7,000 people were killed in six weeks of fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The armed conflict ended in a Moscow-brokered cease-fire deal under which a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration.
The agreement also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor linking the Armenian-populated region with Armenia.
In May, Yerevan accused Baku of deploying its troops inside sovereign Armenian territory near areas that had not been under Azerbaijani control for nearly three decades.
Armenia demanded that Azerbaijan withdraw its forces before a process of delimitation and demarcation advocated by Baku could begin.
Baku, however, has refused to do so, insisting that its troops took up new positions on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier.
Border areas in Syunik, Gegharkunik as well the Yeraskh section of Armenia’s frontier with Azerbaijan’s western exclave of Nakhijevan have seen deadly skirmishes between the two countries’ militaries in recent days and weeks.
Both sides have blamed each other for the incidents, in which Azerbaijan also confirmed that at least one of its servicemen was killed and two others were wounded in separate shootouts.
Armenia made one mistake in 1993, only one: They should have gone all the way to Baku and expired that unholy and artificial so called country of Azerbokjan. Nothing but an oil field masquerading as a country with a made up culture.
The end result of the war should have been as you described but without going all the way to Baku even though we had the power to do so at the time. We had handed the enemy a humiliating and devastating defeat in the battlefield wiping out well over half its armed forces and we could have gone all the way to Baku with very little, if any, fight and resistance. We had brought this artificial state and its pseudo-Turkish racist Azerbaijani leadership to its knees. They were at our mercy but, as usual, the Russians interfered and stopped us because a strong Armenia has always been a liability for Russia. They need an Armenia that is dependent on them so they can justify their presence in Armenia and in the South Caucasus.
Where our short-sighted Armenian leaders went wrong, even though we had more territory to liberate, was that they won the war but failed to bring the war to its intended end. That is to say to force the enemy to a treat to accept the new borders between Armenia and artificial Azerbaijan. Instead, they agreed to a ceasefire which the defeated enemy welcomed with open arms and not because they had come to terms with Armenian demands and wanted peace but because this way they could save what they had and live to fight for another day. What happened last year, among other things, was a direct consequence of the wrong decisions made by our leaders a quarter century ago.
Armenians must learn once and for all that you never give your racist enemy even a slight chance to recover but that you annihilate it with all your power when you get the chance. Our victorious leaders should have forced the enemy to hand over the remaining occupied Armenian territories, the entire region between Rivers Kur and Arax, and then help destroy artificial Azerbaijan from within by arming and enabling the majority indigenous populations to free themselves from the occupation of the so-called Azeri racist tribe and create a state of their own friendly to Armenia right next door!
We have superior intelligence by nature, we also have learned to adopt to climb high, all in peace time because by nature we are not aggressive and that’s why we get overrun by predators. Looking back, is a clear sad picture which pleases the bloodthirsty enemy. But how about now
immediately looking forward…? Immediately is a “no excuse” imperative that sets out the strictest standard for safer life within our borders today and tomorrow only with high-tech aggressive combat capabilities to neutralize any such barbaric attacks at the very source with an all out power superiority to devastate and humiliate the enemy at its door. Only then peace will be respected on our just terms without the need of any negotiators.