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Armenian MP Tigran Abrahamyan of the opposition Pativ Unem bloc has reacted to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s latest statements on the deployment of a new EU mission along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan later this month.

Addressing lawmakers on Wednesday, Pashinyan said EU observers will be monitoring Russian troops stationed in Armenia. He said Azerbaijan has told Western powers that its “aggressive actions” are a response to increased Russian military presence in Armenia.

“Our Western partners started reprimanding us that ‘you are planning aggressive actions as there is a buildup of Russian and Armenian troops planning to attack Azerbaijan, while the poor Azerbaijanis have to seize [Armenian] border heights to counter the threat.’ We said, ‘come and monitor on the ground to see if that is true,’” he said.

“Pashinyan’s claims indicate that Azerbaijan has successfully convinced the international community that its attacks against Armenia were aimed at ‘self-defense’,” Abrahamyan wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

“According to Pashinyan, Azerbaijan justified its occupation of Armenia’s sovereign territory after the war, the seizure of new border positions and heights with it, and it actually succeeded.

“How much the country's governance must be failed that after a full-scale war against Artsakh, five attacks on Armenia and Artsakh, the blockade of the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia, huge territorial losses and thousands of casualties, you are now trying to convince the world that you are not an aggressor and do not seek war?” the MP charged.

He criticized the authorities for failure to hold military drills and boost the army’s combat readiness not to be called an "aggressor" or a "revanchist".

“You call your ally’s [Russia] military base a threat and calmly wait for your enemies to launch fresh attack on your country. What is this if not Pashinyan’s new scrupulous plan of defeat?” he stated.