Army

Army

Azerbaijanâ€™s military leadership views situation on frontline

23 February 2017 07:19 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan’s defense minister and senior military officials have paid a visit to the frontline zone to inspect the combat readiness of military units due to the increasing number of provocative actions by the Armenian army.

The intelligence data presented to the defense minister shows that the enemy conducts regrouping of its forces, as well as holds activities to deploy artillery systems and other large-caliber weapons at the forefront of the defense line. This fact gives ground to note that Armenia is going to re-escalate the situation, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry told APA on Feb. 23.

The ministry leadership gave instructions to the frontline troops to take more severe and decisive retaliatory measures against Armenia to prevent further provocations.

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 CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in Dec.1994) 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, the 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.