YEREVAN, MAY 13, ARMENPRESS. David Babayan, spokesman of the President of Nagorno Karabakh says Azerbaijan is spreading disinformation about the Armenian Armed Forces in order to conceal its own crimes. Babayan was referring to the recent Azerbaijani announcement on filing criminal charges regarding use of chemical weapons by Armenia.

“It’s a blatant lie; Azerbaijan is trying to conceal its own crimes. Azerbaijan itself has extensive experience in using chemical agents and poisoning the population on Nagorno Karabakh. As early as in the Soviet times, they were regularly poisoning the water supply of Stepanakert. Nagorno Karabakh once had the highest longevity rate. In 1970-1980’s Nagorno Karabakh had the least cancer patients in Transcaucasia. In 1989, it rose to the 2nd place. The leadership of Azerbaijan had poisoned our water reserves and people got sick”, Babayan said. He says it is not a coincidence that during Soviet times the workers of Stepanakert’s water filter station were Azerbaijanis, who were not living in Stepanakert. Besides, the police officers who were guarding the water sources were also Azerbaijanis. According to Babayan, in 1990 the Azerbaijani authorities poisoned the Stepanakert water feeding system with the so called “kreolin” chemical agent, which is a veterinary drug, highly toxic. Many were poisoned, many others left without water.

“In 2005, the director of the Institute of Radioactive Issues of the Azerbaijani National Academy openly announced in an interview that there are numerous chemical agents in Azerbaijan, the whereabouts of which is unknown even to the state. Those chemicals are enough for criminal terrorist groups to create bombs. They said this. Now, they have used these chemical agents against their own people, to blame the Armenian side afterwards. Similar policy is commonly undertaken by criminals and terrorist states. If an Armenian soldier is beheaded in a country, displayed, ears of the elderly cut off, what else can be expected from this kind of a state?”, Babayan added.