At the meeting of the defense commissions of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) parliaments on October 24, Armen Khachatryan, the Deputy Chairman of the Defense Commission of the Armenian Parliament, said that Azerbaijan wants to establish control over Armenia's Syunik province through military action.
He also claimed that the contingent of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces might increase at the expense of Turkish formations in Nakhchivan. "Azerbaijan clearly states its claims to the sovereign territory of Armenia and is ready to continue active military actions to take control of Syunik province in the south of the country. This would allow Azerbaijan to establish a link between the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and, through it, Turkey, and thereby have full control over the isolated [de-facto] territory of [separatist] Nagorno-Karabakh. We do not rule out the possibility of increasing the combat capability of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces at the expense of Turkish units," he added.
Khachatryan harshly criticized the silence and inaction of the CSTO at a time when Azerbaijan entered the sovereign territory of Armenia and asked why the organization did not take any military steps or even provide humanitarian aid to Armenia. "Why was the decision made to exclude the provision of military aid to Armenia? Why is there no reaction to the aggression against the allied country and the occupation of its territory, at least at the level of statements? Why is the sovereign territory of Armenia called disputed territory?" the Deputy Chairman of the Defense Commission of the Armenian Parliament stated.
Khachatryan added that some CSTO allies support Azerbaijan. According to him, this caused a significant part of Armenian society to hold a protest in the center of Yerevan on October 24. The Deputy Chairman of the Defense Commission of the Armenian National Assembly reminded that, according to clause 4 of the CSTO agreement, aggression against one member of the bloc is considered aggression against all members and that they should support Armenia in this case.
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