Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of breaching rules for recovering soldier bodies

Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of breaching rules for recovering soldier bodies
# 27 February 2017 07:51 (UTC +04:00)

Armenia has violated the rules for recovering the bodies of Azerbaijani soldiers from the battlefield, achieved with participation of international mediators, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said told APA on Feb. 27.

According to the ministry, Azerbaijani servicemen Agshin Abdullayev, Shakhlar Nazarov, Tural Hashimli, Zulfi Gadimov and Zakir Jafarov were killed while preventing provocations of the Armenian army along the contact line of troops on Feb. 24-25.

The recovery of the bodies of the Azerbaijani servicemen killed in these battles was scheduled for 12:00 (GMT + 4 hours) Feb. 26 under the mediation of the OSCE and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the ministry said.

However, when the recovery was about to begin, the Armenian side deliberately started to put forward unacceptable conditions in order to disrupt the procedure, the ministry noted.

At the same time, the Armenian army attempted to commit acts of sabotage in other directions of the frontline, opening fire from different caliber weapons, added the ministry.

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.

Army

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