Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug.16 / Trend, S.Agayeva /
The Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the United Nations, Agshin Mehdiyev sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN information center reported.
Mehdiyev informed Ban Ki-moon about ongoing violations of the ceasefire by the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia, recorded for the month of July 2011. "As a result of these violations and the terrorist act committed by the Armenian side on 14 July 2011, during the aforementioned period a 13-year-old Azerbaijani girl and one officer of the armed forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan were killed and two Azerbaijani civilians were seriously wounded," the letter reads.
The letter says the increasing number of casualties over the past several months among Azerbaijani civilians residing in the front-line areas represents yet another piece of evidence testifying to Armenia's apparent disregard of its obligations under international law and in the context of the ongoing conflict settlement process.
In their joint statement of 26 May 2011 made in Deauville, France, the Presidents of France, the Russian Federation and the United States of America - the countries co-chairing the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - inter alia, strongly urged the sides to prepare their populations for peace, not war. The Armenian side responded to this call in the manner so characteristic of it.
According to the letter, the Armenian side responded to this call in the manner so characteristic of it.
In addition to intensified attacks on Azerbaijani civilians and civilian objects across the front line and the recent uncontrollable surge of hostile rhetoric towards Azerbaijan from the Armenian leadership, President Serzh Sargsyan of the Republic of Armenia went farther ahead and once and for all shattered the artificially imposed myth of his Government's ability to engage in a constructive search for peace in the region.
At a meeting with the participants in the fifth Pan-Armenian Olympiad for the Armenian Language, Literature and Armenian Studies, held in Gara Chichek (Tsakhkadzor), Armenia, on 25 July 2011, the head of the Armenian State instructed the youth of his country to continue the implementation of the policy of hatred and mistrust among the peoples of the region. Thus, in response to the question of a student about the perspectives of expanding Armenia's territory at the expense of neighbouring Turkey, Serzh Sargsyan said that the realization of this duty would depend on the efforts of the new generation and referred as an example to the fulfilment of the task of capturing a part of what he called "our fatherland - Karabakh".
"In other words, instead of preparing its people for peace and a prosperous and stable future in friendship and cooperation with the neighbouring nations, the President of Armenia openly incites the youth and future generations of his country to new wars and violence. It is notable that the Armenian President's belief in this adventurist idea is based on the conviction that his "nation ... always rises from the ashes like the phoenix - again and again". Accordingly, the head of the Armenian State considers it possible to plunge his own people and the region as a whole into new wars and an abyss of misery for the realization of the disastrous political agenda", the letter reads.
The letter says President Serzh Sargsyan has not confined himself to the above-mentioned harmful views and continued sharing them at the joint press conference with the President of Poland in Yerevan on 28 July 2011. This time he was deeply absorbed in discussing the issues pertaining to the sovereign territory of another State - the Republic of Azerbaijan. According to the President of Armenia, "the Nagorno Karabakh conflict ... erupted as a result of the violation of the Nagorno Karabakh people's right for self-determination" and "the legitimate right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to master their own destiny, to have security guarantees and prosper in their historical land must be respected". Every single word in these and other comments about the conflict, its causes and consequences and the peace process made by the head of the Armenian State during the press conference is pure fiction, to say the least.
It has been internationally recognized, including by the principal organs of the United Nations, that Armenia unleashed the war, attacked Azerbaijan and occupied its territories, including the Daghlyq Garabagh (Nagorno Karabakh) region, carried out ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, perpetrated other heinous crimes in the course of the war and established the ethnically constructed subordinate separatist entity on the captured Azerbaijani territory.
According to Mehdiyev, the President of Armenia, who bears personal responsibility for horrible atrocities against Azerbaijani civilians, must be well aware that what he considers "the violation of the Nagorno Karabakh people's right for self-determination" has been unequivocally qualified by the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly, as well as by other authoritative international organizations, as the illegal use of force against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and other egregious violations of the Charter of the United Nations and international law.
"Moreover, the Republic of Azerbaijan considers historical assertions of the Armenian side, a vivid example of which is the reference by the President of Armenia to the occupied Daghlyq Garabagh region of Azerbaijan as allegedly the occupiers' "historical land" or "fatherland", as false and having the sole purpose of misleading the international community and justifying the policy of violent territorial expansionism," the letter reads.
According to the letter, having implemented the total ethnic cleansing of both the territory of Armenia and the occupied territories of Azerbaijan of all non-Armenians and thus succeeded in creating the uniquely mono-ethnic culture in these areas, the leadership of Armenia long ago unveiled its annexationist intentions, at the core of which are historical delusions and racial animosity. The defiant behaviour of those high-ranking officials in Armenia opposing the perspectives of a peaceful and prosperous future for the region, ordering the targeting of Azerbaijani civilians, including children, manipulating public opinion and trying to delude the international community leaves no doubt as to their unwillingness to work for peace and attempts to provoke large-scale destabilization.
"We are confident that the leadership of Armenia will be obliged to cease its provocative policy, to ensure that the occupation of Azerbaijani territory is ended, to denounce its territorial claims towards neighbouring nations and to establish civilized relations with all countries of the region. The Republic of Azerbaijan sincerely believes that there is no alternative to peace, stability and mutually beneficial regional cooperation," the letter reads.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.