Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergei Naryshkin issued a statement accusing NATO countries of attempting to undermine the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “According to the information we have, some Western countries are inciting Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalists to discredit and disrupt the ceasefire agreements. They are trying to convince Armenians that the peace in Nagorno-Karabakh is a defeat for Yerevan. They are injecting ideas about the need for a ‘war to the victorious end.’ On the other hand, Azerbaijanis are told that the Kremlin ‘stole their victory’ when the Azerbaijani army was a step away from capturing [Karabakh capital] Stepanakert,” reads his statement released on Nov. 18, reported TASS.
Naryshkin further said that “leading NATO countries are trying to hide their irritation at the agreement on the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia reached with Russia’s active participation. ... The United States and its allies are vexed that the war was stopped through Moscow’s mediation. The thing is that it essentially reduced their longstanding work to push Russia out of Transcaucasia to zero.”
He continued: “Neither Washington nor the ‘United Europe’ want to come to terms with the existing balance of power in the region. They couldn’t come up with anything better than trying to rekindle animosity between the nations of Azerbaijan and Armenia to dismantle it,” he warned. “These actions serve as yet more proof that the U.S. and its European friends again pursue their goals at the expense of the interests of ordinary people, in this case, Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Americans and Europeans are not worried that their provocations can lead to new bloodshed and plunge the region into a severe military conflict.”
