President Serzh Sargsyan has challenged the position of international bodies which, he implied, have failed to give a proper response to and lay the blame on a concrete side after the worst ceasefire violation along the Armenian-Azeri line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh that occurred last week.

The Armenian leader spoke on Tuesday to an audience at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a leading think tank, in Berlin as part of his three-day official visit to Germany. In his speech he also addressed problems of regional concern and answered questions on the June 18 clashes in Karabakh that Yerevan says was a major provocation of Azerbaijan aimed at scuttling the current peace process.

Answering questions after his speech, Sargsyan said that very often “the unclear approach of many institutions, including European ones, their fear that if they try to mention those responsible for concrete cases, they will disrupt the negotiating process” impedes progress in the issue.

“Today it is known to the whole world that it was Azerbaijanis who attacked. And what we have? The Minsk Group cochairmen, the European Union’s special representative for the South Caucasus give general estimations and urge the sides not to make provocations. Who are the sides? Let me ask – who is concretely responsibly for the incident?” said Sargsyan, referring to the latest incident in which a group of Azerbaijani commandos attempted to penetrate into the Karabakh-controlled territory. Four Armenian were killed and as many wounded in an exchange of fire that followed the intrusion. One Azeri soldier was also killed in the clashes.

“We signed a trilateral ceasefire agreement in 1994 between Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. We did this at Azerbaijan’s suggestion and with Russia’s mediation. That is to say, we have a legal obligation not to violate the ceasefire, but ceasefire violations do occur. The incident, which occurred only hours after my meeting with Azerbaijan’s president, which took place with the mediation of the Russian president, was simply something unacceptable. It was a challenge to the Minsk Group, and Russia and to us, of course,” stressed Sargsyan.

Addressing regional matters in his speech, the Armenian leader said that dispelling Iran’s feeling of insecurity is a matter of importance for Yerevan. He stressed that “without it [Iran] there is no solution either for tomorrow’s issues, or even today’s nuclear problem.”

Speaking about the stalled Armenian-Turkish normalization process, Sargsyan pointed out that “Turkey deviated from its commitments and not only failed to ratify the signed protocols, but also returned to the old positions that it had before the [start of the] process, to preconditions, the language of dictating and even making threats.”

According to Sargsyan, the “zero problems with neighbors” policy adopted by official Ankara “gives zero results”.

During his official visit to Germany on June 21-23, Sargsyan also met Chancellor Angela Merkel and other senior officials of the country.