YEREVAN—President Serzh Sarkisian on Tuesday urged the international community to recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and said that Turkey’s continued denial of the Genocide posed a threat to regional security.

Sarkisian, who was speaking a joint session of Armenia’s executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government held at Armenia’s Defense Ministry, forcefully denounced Baku’s continued military threats and said that it was Turkey’s responsibility and duty for recognize the Genocide.

“The utmost objective of our foreign policy is the final legal consolidation of the victory in the aggressive war unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh,” said Sarkisian. “The Nagorno Karabakh Republic must be recognized by the international community, since there is no logical explanation as to why the people, who have realized their right to self-determination within the confines of the law and have unequivocally defended it should be part of Azerbaijan. Why should the destiny of those people be conditioned by the illegal decision Stalin once made?”

“The obvious anti-Armenian, fascist, bellicose policy of the Azerbaijani authorities on the issue remains a major threat to our security. Azerbaijan openly violates the conditions of the. Soldiers die at the line of contact, and their blood is on the Azerbaijani authorities,” explained Sarkisian.

“In a few days we’ll mark the 25th anniversary of the Karabakh Movement. From the beginning of the movement, the people оf Karabakh never put up with Stalin’s illegality, they never considered themselves citizens of Azerbaijan, never accepted the decision to annex Karabakh to Azerbaijan,” said Sarkisian.

“The ceasefire agreement signed 19 year ago at the request of Azerbaijan consolidated the victory of the Armenian self-defense struggle,” said Sarkisian, adding that “ignoring the provisions of the ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan continues to fire not only Artsakh, but also the Republic of Armenia.”

“The Azerbaijani authorities openly refute the proposals of the mediators to withdraw snipers from the line of contact and create mechanisms to investigate the border incidents. They even refuse to implement the confidence-building measures envisaged by the agreement signed in Sochi,” he explained.

“We must always be ready for new military advances by a regime which propagates war. I think our neighbors understand that war will be equally, if not more destructive to Azerbaijan. At the same time, I don’t think the Azerbaijani authorities are concerned about the fate of their people. They will be ready to resume military actions if they consider they have an exceptional privilege over Armenia or if it is necessary to diverge the attention from domestic problems,” declared Sarkisian.

“Armenia and Azerbaijan do not want war, but everyone should be confident that we’ll give a worthy response to any challenge. Never again will the people of Artsakh tolerate the danger of physical annihilation. The Republic of Armenia is a guarantor of this,” said Sarkisian.

“The fate of Artsakh will be decided by its people. It is consolidated by international law and a number of international documents. Therefore, the full participation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic authorities is an imperative of the time,” the President said.

“Speaking about Azerbaijan we must keep in mind that there is a state in the region, which unequivocally supports the anti-Armenian policy of Azerbaijan. The Turkish-Azerbaijani unity created under the slogan “One nation, two states” has been trying to grab unilateral concessions from Armenia through the deepening of blockade and dividing lines and exclusion of cooperation in the course of the past twenty years. They have never succeeded and will never succeed” said Sarkisian in discussing the Turkish factor in regional security issues.

“As a peace-loving, progressive and farsighted nation, we understand the importance of creating an atmosphere of mutual trust for peaceful co-existence with neighbors and move forward. With this in mind we initiated the normalization of relations with Turkey,” the president stated.

“The recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide is the duty of Turkey before the victims of the Genocide, the survivors and their descendants, all mankind and first of all, its own people,” the President said. “I think that without Turkey’s sincere apology and elimination of the consequences of the Genocide, the secure existence of Armenia in the region will continue to be endangered,” he added.