The Azerbaijani provocations on the border occur following the tragic developments in Gyumri, political expert Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan said at today's press conference.
He said that following the murder of the Avetisyans' family in Gyumri, Azerbaijan has tried to aggravate the tension in the Armenian society by escalating the tension on the border. Meanwhile, the developments in August 2014 demonstrated that Azerbaijan's policy of breaching the ceasefire has a reverse effect.
"The Armenian society becomes more united after such incidents. We saw it in August and we see it now. So, Azerbaijan's actions meet even stronger resistance", he said.
The expert also touched on the statements demanding that the 102nd Russian military base should be removed from Gyumri. Melik-Shahnazaryan said that the given base is still of much importance to Armenia and that it would be unreasonable to neglect the issues of military security.
The expert stressed that Armenia has enough military potential to restrain Azerbaijan. In the meantime, he pointed out the need to intensify the diplomatic steps towards the conflict settlement. In particular, Armenia must demand ensuring security on the border by urging Azerbaijan to withdraw its snipers from the Line of Contact.
It was pointed out that the Karabakh talks have reached a deadlock since the moment of extradition of Ramil Safarov, the murderer of an Armenian serviceman, from Hungary to Azerbaijan. Since then the reality has changed - the negotiations are absolutely different from what is happening on the border. So, the Karabakh peace process faces a diplomatic crisis.
To note, over the past 20 days Azerbaijan has repeatedly mounted sabotage attacks. As a result, Azerbaijan has lost 14 servicemen. 20 more Azeri soldiers have been wounded. Unfortunately, the Armenian side also has losses. Since the beginning of 2015, 10 Armenian servicemen have died on the border and on the Line of Contact.