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Azerbaijan prevents another Armenian sabotage attempt, enemy forced to retreat

24 February 2017 08:26 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense is focusing on measures to be taken by the Azerbaijani army to prevent sabotage attempts of the Armenian armed forces in all directions of the frontline, the Defense Ministry told APA on Friday.

Azerbaijan’s military leadership is on a visit to the frontline to inspect the combat readiness of military units due to the increasing number of provocative actions by the Armenian army.

The Defense Ministry’s leadership, while inspecting the military units on the frontline at night, by means of observing devices found that a reconnaissance and sabotage group of Armenia was trying to commit diversions in the direction of Talish and Gulustan. The enemy forces were forced to retreat as a result of the relevant instructions and immediate retaliatory actions taken by the Azerbaijani army.

The military officials visited military units keeping Talish village and surrounding areas under control, and units located in Leletepe height and Jojug Marjanli village and watched the enemy positions.

The defense minister met with the personnel serving in the liberated territories, checked the combat readiness and psychological state of personnel, got familiarized with the social conditions of the servicemen.

After presenting prizes to a group of servicemen for distinguished service, the minister had a talk with soldiers.

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.