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YEREVAN (RFE/RL)—Armenian
President Serzh Sarkisian paid tribute to the Armenian Armed
Forces on Thursday, saying, in a thinly veiled warning to
Azerbaijan, that they would successfully fight back any military
attack on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Today we are strong, stronger than ever; our army is solid,
modern and capable of fulfilling any task,” Sarkisian told
hundreds of graduates of Armenian military academies. “It has
passed with honor the exam of not only war, but peace as well,
embodying the victorious spirit of all Armenians.”
“To those who threaten us with a war, we are reminding the
biblical message: ‘For all they that take the sword shall perish
with the sword,’” he said. “The irrefutable truth of these words
has been proved by the best sons of our nation, the generation
of our fathers, my generation. Let no one doubt that if
necessary, the same will happen today as well.”
It
was an obvious response to Azerbaijani leaders’ regular threats
to take Nagorno-Karabakh and the liberated territories by force.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly told his
nation to be prepared for war “at any moment.”
A
native of Karabakh, Sarkisian played a prominent role in the
Karabakh conflict of 1991-1994, commanded Karabakh defense
forces before moving to Yerevan and becoming Armenia’s defense
minister in 1993. He also served as defense minister from
2000-2007.
Sarkisian
addressed the army college graduates after they solemnly
received their first military ranks and paraded in Yerevan’s
main Republic Square on the occasion. The high-profile ceremony
was also attended by other top government officials and the head
of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II. |
