Azerbaijan, Baku, March 16 / Trend, R.Darakhshan /
Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the UN Agshin Mehdiyev on March 5 sent a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about violation of ceasefire by Armenia. The letter was circulated as an official document of the General Assembly and the UN Security Council, permanent mission said Friday.
The letter notes that as a result of ceasefire violations by Armenia's armed forces in December 2011 and January 2012 two Azerbaijani servicemen were killed and one civilian was wounded. The annex to the letter says that during this period the Armenian armed forces targeted both military and civilian targets in Azerbaijan shooting from their positions both in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and in Armenia.
The letter also condemned statements by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on the twentieth anniversary of the country's armed forces on January 22, and at the Ninth Conference of the Volunteer Homeland Defenders Union on February 18. Mehdiyev pointed out that the statements contained "fresh examples of blatant cynical distortion and perversion of the root causes, course and consequences of the war unleashed by Armenia against Azerbaijan."
The document also stresses that Armenia continues to increase its military presence in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
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 7 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.