Pashinyan calls emergency meeting as Azerbaijan launches ‘large-scale’ attack on Karabakh

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan convened an emergency meeting of Armenia’s Security Council Tuesday afternoon in response to Azerbaijan’s move earlier in the day to launch a “large-scale military offensive” against Nagorno-Karabakh. No other information was made immediately available.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry issued a lengthy statement condemning what Azerbaijan has termed its “local anti-terrorist activities” in Nagorno-Karabakh and called for members of the United Nations Security Council and Russian peacekeepers to “take clear and unequivocal steps to end Azerbaijan's aggression.”

The ministry added: “The Armenian side has repeatedly warned that Azerbaijan’s continuous, aggressive actions against Nagorno-Karabakh, its unconcealed belligerent rhetoric, and its absolutely false and reprehensible propaganda calling Nagorno-Karabakh’s population ‘terrorists’ is in all pursuit of one goal: to subject Nagorno-Karabakh’s population to ethnic cleansing through the use of force.”

Azerbaijan launched a “large-scale military offensive” against Nagorno-Karabakh around 1 p.m. Tuesday, according to the authorities in Stepanakert.