Nagorno Garabagh

Home page

Nagorno Garabagh

Armenia holding military exercises in occupied Azerbaijani lands

27 May 2016 11:17 (UTC +04:00)

Aghdam. Ziyan Amirkhanli - APA. Armenian armed forces are holdingÂ large-scale military exercises in the occupied territories of Azerbaijanâ€™s Aghdam district.

The ongoing exercises in the town of AghdamÂ controlled by Armenian forces involve armed vehicles and artillery pieces, APAâ€™s Karabakh bureau reported.

Artillery shells are hitting mountains and churning up aÂ cloud of dustÂ that is observed from the frontline. The sound of fire is also clearly audible in areas along the front line.

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 Groupâ€™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.Â Â

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.