Wednesday, June 23 2021 16:13

ArmInfo.Preparing for war is not a matter of a few days and months; here the calculation should go for years, decades. President of the Artsakh Republic Arayik  Harutyunyan stated this during his speech in front of the citizens  gathered in Stepankert on the Renaissance Square.

In particular, he told the Artsakh people about the reasons for the  defeat in the Artsakh war, about why the war was not stopped earlier,  no weapons were purchased, and about his role in resolving these  issues.

First of all, Harutyunyan shared with the citizens with the  deplorable state of the positions on the front line, which would not  have allowed fighting for at least an hour. In this regard, he said  that on his behalf, about 100 positions were to be built and equipped  along the entire line. Without funding from the Armenian government,  work began on 17 positions, but only 1 station was fully equipped for  the war. According to him, there were no seriously wounded persons  during the hostilities thanks to this.

"I'm not saying that work wasn't carried out on the front line. For  decades, it was done. It was just that there was still a lot to be  done, which I didn't have time to do," he said.

Speaking about the fact that no additional weapons were purchased in  4 months, President Harutyunyan argued that the Artsakh government  does not have such powers and the corresponding budget. Moreover, in  his words, no country was ready to sell weapons to Artsakh. At the  same time, Harutyunyan stressed that the Defense Army is not  subordinate to the President of the Artsakh Republic. And during the  hostilities, as the head of the Republic noted further, he had no  other powers, except for giving advice to the commanding officers.

At the same time, he stressed that he had repeatedly advocated the  cessation of hostilities. In this context, Harutyunyan recalled his  letter, published on October 19 and addressed to the Prime Minister  of Armenia, in which a request was made to stop the war the day  before and an agreement was expressed to make concessions. In  addition, he recalled a similar official request for assistance in  ending hostilities, addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"In this situation, when Shushi fell, when Stepanakert, other cities,  and the lives of thousands of servicemen were threatened, I asked an  hour earlier to stop the war and save the rest of Artsakh. I did not  care about the details of the negotiation process, because every hour  would mean human losses until the complete loss of Artsakh, "he said.

At the same time, he recalled the investigation of the Artsakh war,  within which he gave testimony for 8 hours. Within the framework of  an objective investigation, according to Harutyunyan, all the guilty  persons should be brought to justice, both in Armenia and in Artsakh.  "I am ready, within the framework of my authority, to assist this  process," he said.