The Prime Minister’s wife Anna Hakobyan issued a statement, which reads:

“On 13 July, when active hostilities on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border were just beginning and escalating as a result of the Azeri attack, I urged Azerbaijani women and mothers to “call on their country’s leadership to cease hostilities and not endanger the lives of the children of Azerbaijan and Armenia.”

I did it as the author of the “Women for Peace” campaign. A campaign aimed at uniting women against war, creating a favorable environment for the leaders of the conflicting countries to seek solutions to the conflicts at the negotiating table.

Several mothers of Azerbaijani soldiers responded to this call through the Azerbaijani media, which is heavily controlled by the authorities, and the message was summarized in the following lines: As the mother of a soldier, I say, Fight! Forward Azerbaijani soldier, Forward! Fight to wave our flag in Stepanakert. The only mother of a soldier is the homeland. The struggle for the homeland is sacred.

Thus, according to the Azeri state propaganda machine, the Azeri mothers rejected my call for an end to hostilities and peace, they declared that they were sending their sons to fight and die in the holy struggle.

A large number of Azeris were killed in the following days.

The Azerbaijani state propaganda machine failed to curb the passions of the Azerbaijani people.

And for several days now, the “holy struggle for the homeland” has gone beyond the borders of the conflict zone.

In order to avenge their fallen compatriots, Azeris living in Russia and other European countries launched various operations against Armenians in those cities. At first they attacked the Armenian apricots trampling it with their feet, then they banned the sale of apricots in their shops, then during the protest they attacked the Armenian women, set on fire the car of the RA diplomatic mission, smashed the cars and shops of the Armenians, attacked one Armenian with several people and beat him.

These actions of theirs did not go unanswered. Our compatriots naturally had to defend themselves.

These days, Armenians and Azeris are already fighting in the capitals and cities of different countries of the world.

Now not only the lives of the soldiers standing at the border are endangered, but also the lives of any Azerbaijani or Armenian living in Moscow, Brussels and Los Angeles, but also in any other city.

And so the Azerbaijani mothers, who are fighting for their sons, have started appealing to various international organizations, human rights NGOs. The latter are called to intervene, to assess, to prevent what is happening in different countries.

Women who vehemently rejected the call for peace and led their people to war are now trying to place the responsibility for the consequences of that war on the shoulders of others.

As an Armenian woman and mother, I have to say directly that Armenian mothers in addition to not being afraid to send their sons to war abut they also are not afraid to personally fight and die for the homeland.

But Armenian mothers prefer peace. I am sure Azerbaijani mothers, sisters and daughters, too.

Azerbaijani mothers must finally find an answer to a question: is the blood of their sons flowing for the homeland or for the longevity of dictatorial rule?

I call on Azerbaijani women and mothers to be more courageous, to join the Women for Peace campaign as soon as possible, to force their country’s authorities to abandon their obsession to resolving the conflict by military means, and to seek a settlement at the negotiating table in peace.

Because violence brings new violence.

Peace, meanwhile, has no alternative.

P.S. Azerbaijani women, you can sit at home and deny war and say your word for peace. All you have to do is sign up for the Women for Peace website, “I Support” section. Your support is very important. And if you are thousands, the government cannot take revenge on you, on the contrary, it will have to take into account your demands.

#Womenforpeace:

# Women for Peace

#Womenareinspiring:

#Womensmotivation:

#Womenempowerment.”