Armenian solder confirms bad treatment in military units

/By AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

"I call on each Armenian serviceman to cross to Azerbaijan, a humanist country," said the surrendered Armenian soldier, apparently feeling confident about his decision to defect from the Armenian army.

In a video interrogation by the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, the Armenian conscript who capitulated to Azerbaijan on the Line of Contact on March 22, clarified the motives behind his escape from Armenia's army.

Introducing himself as Andranik Grigoryan, the capitulator soldier said he was born in Berdashen, a village in Armenia's Martuni region in 1991. His military service in the Armenian army started in 2012 on a contract basis, he explained adding that on March 22, 2015, he voluntarily surrendered himself to Azerbaijani troops.

"I was very badly treated in the military unit in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and it forced me to cross to Azerbaijan. I'm tired of this nonsense fighting, I don't want to die" he said.

Ten days have passed since Grigoryan's surrender and his address in the video showed clearly that being in Azerbaijan is far more safer than serving in the Armenian military.

"Soldiers are treated very well here in Azerbaijan. Armenian servicemen have to do what I did and cross to Azerbaijan," he said.

"Azerbaijanis do not want war, however they are on a perfect defensive position. The authorities in Armenia have deceived their own people sending them to die in defending their own selfish interests," Grigoryan added.

Satisfactory living conditions while in detention in Azerbaijan - timely and necessary food and clothing provision - have convinced Grigoryan that he made the right decision.

Grigoryan voluntarily surrendered to the Azerbaijani troops on March 22 raising a white flag along the Line of Contact. Grigoryan explained his step as an effort to save his life, as he noted that he could no longer contemplate another day in the Armenian armed forces since it meant dying a senseless death, defending a government which cares not for its people.

In a statement issued on March 26, the Defense Ministry said Grigoryan had no complaints about his conditions of detention and his health, stressing that no any threat had been imposed to him as he is kept under generally accepted principles of human rights.

During an earlier interrogation, Grigoryan revealed the realities facing the Armenian armed forces, including the shortage of weapons, poor morale, difficult living conditions, and low food supplies and so on. "Even civilians are entrenched as guards due to a lack of servicemen on the frontline units," confirmed the capitulator conscript.

Meanwhile, the Armenian Defense Ministry linked Grigoryan's move to alleged problems within his family when police arrested the soldier's father on March 26.

As a result of Armenia's armed invasion into Azerbaijan's legal territory, the two neighboring countries have remained locked in a bitter territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Armenia-backed separatists seized from Azerbaijan in a bloody war in the early 1990s.

Despite Baku's best efforts, peace in the occupied lands remains a mirage in the distance since Armenia refuses to comply with international law and continues its occupation of over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory.