Nagorno Garabagh

Nagorno Garabagh

Azerbaijan urges UN, OSCE to condemn Armenia for violating ceasefire agreement

27 April 2016 12:10 (UTC +04:00)

Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov sent the letters to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Chairman of the UN Security Council Louis Michel and Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council Pohl Eberhard, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told APA on Apr. 27.

In the letters, Mammadyarov urged the heads of international organizations to strongly condemn Armenia for violating the ceasefire agreement reached April 5, 2016, to demand Armenia's fully complying with the undertaken commitments and withdraw its troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, added Hajiyev.

According to the spokesman, on the eve and the days of the 7th UNAOC Global Forum in Baku, Armenian armed forces have continued shelling Azerbaijani army positions and densely populated areas and facilities located along the contact line of troops, using D-30 howitzers and other weapons prohibited by international conventions.

As a result of these actions of Armenia, private and public property in the Azerbaijani district of Terter was seriously damaged, he noted.

Hajiyev went on to add that Azerbaijan’s permanent missions to the UN and the OSCE have already given the member stated additional information about the continuation of Armenia’s armed provocations.

In the letters, Azerbaijani FM Mammadyarov said that Armenia’s provocative actions also undermine the OSCE Minsk Group’s diplomatic efforts towards the settlement of the conflict, the spokesman concluded.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.