YEREVAN, August 4. /TASS/. Armenian military personnel do not serve in Nagorno-Karabakh and the army of the unrecognized republic will not have to remain on combat duty, if there are guarantees from Russia and Azerbaijan the line of disengagement will not be violated, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a government meeting on Thursday.
"Today, Azerbaijan is talking about the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army and the reasons why it is deployed along the line of disengagement. If Russia’s peacekeeping contingent and Azerbaijan provide guarantees of this line’s inviolability, the defense army, I believe, will not have to remain on combat duty. Also, I officially declare that there are no military servicemen from Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh," he said.
Pashinyan explained that the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army had to be put on combat duty when "Azerbaijan refused to sign the Russian peacekeepers’ mandate and continued to violate the provisions of the tripartite statement of November 9, 2020, including those on the cessation of all military operations, which constitutes the essence of the mentioned document."