the absence of armed conflicts". Pashinyan said that Azerbaijan has taken "military action on the north-eastern border of Armenia. The Armenian Armed Forces did not fail to respond to provocative actions. Unfortunately, they continue to this day, contributing to tensions. Azerbaijan's aggressive policy, escalating leads nowhere. It will not be able to break our resolve and make unreasonable and unilateral concessions". He also noted that there is "no military solution to the conflict and there is no alternative to peace negotiations". On 18 July, the press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry categorically denied all allegations of "Armenia wanting to lure the CSTO into the conflict", noting that Armenia do not need help. According to her, "Armenia, as a member state of the CSTO, considered itself obliged to notify its colleagues and structural partners about what is happening on the border". On 19 July, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, in an interview with Sky News Arabia, calling the skirmishes a "renewed attempt by Azerbaijan by way of attacking Armenia on 12 July to once again attempt to impose unilateral concessions from Armenia on the question of Nagorno-Karabakh", and that the "ongoing rhetoric, the very aggressive, inflammatory, warmongering rhetoric of Azerbaijani leadership addressed to Armenia, and the Armenian people in general, the territorial, historical claims to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the use of force, the threat of force, have been the clear underlying reason" of the skirmishes. On 30 July, Armenia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General condemning "the instigation of inter-ethnic clashes and violence against the Armenian communities in various parts of the world". He noted that the "violent attacks perpetrated against ethnic Armenians in different parts of the world, involving the deliberate damage and destruction of property belonging to Armenians, including the vandalization of a school and other disruptive acts of ethnically motivated violence and aggression" were carried out with the "direct participation of Azerbaijani officials", and "the hateful and racist rhetoric dominating the political discourse of the Azerbaijani leadership constitutes all elements of incitement to violence and represents a significant indicator of risk of atrocity crimes". Azerbaijani On 12 July, Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Hikmat Hajiyev accused the Armenian government of "aggravating the situation and diverting attention from domestic problems against the background of socio-economic problems exacerbated by the spread of COVID-19 in Armenia as