Baku, Azerbaijan, July 1
Trend:
Currently, Armenia is controlled from four sides, it has no independent policy, therefore, its patrons will one day abandon it, Azerbaijan’s deputy prime minister, chairman of the State Committee for Refugees and IDPs, Ali Hasanov said in an excusive interview with Trend.
Although the ceasefire regime has been established since 1994, Armenians continue their nefarious acts by regularly firing upon Azerbaijani territories, said the deputy prime minister.
“The occupational Armenian army, which has invaded the Azerbaijani lands, staged a provocation again in April 2016 on the line of contact of Azerbaijani and Armenian armies, and shelled Azerbaijani villages and settlements using large-caliber weapons and artillery,” said Hasanov. “As a result, servicemen and civilians were killed, and houses and farms of civilians suffered serious damage.”
He pointed out that Azerbaijani army gave an adequate response to the Armenian troops.
“The enemy, suffering heavy losses in manpower and equipment, had to retreat being faced by the might of Azerbaijani armed forces,” said Hasanov.
“In response to the calls from heads of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries for ensuring the ceasefire regime, Azerbaijan unilaterally ensured the ceasefire,” he said. “But Armenia doesn’t take those calls into consideration and continues to shell Azerbaijani positions using heavy weapons.”
The deputy prime minister pointed out that Armenia’s violating the ceasefire on the frontline once again shows that Sargsyan regime doesn’t want the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
“When does Armenia’s criminal fascist regime usually resort to provocations? Firstly, it takes such steps when Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev visits foreign countries, the visit is very successful and very important international events are held there. Armenia’s purpose is to undermine the significance of the meetings held there and divert the international community’s attention from those meetings,” said Hasanov.
“Secondly, Armenia stages provocations during very important international events in Azerbaijan, and thirdly, when the socio-political situation is exacerbated in Armenia due to the dissatisfactions with the current ruling regime,” added Hasanov.
Sargsyan regime takes such steps in order to divert the attention of its people and society, he added.
Hasanov noted that the success of Azerbaijani army during the April developments encouraged the Azerbaijani people.
“As a result of the attention and care by the Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, today, the Azerbaijani army is one of the powerful armies not only in the region, but in the world,” he said. “The material and technical base of our armed forces has been enhanced, the discipline level and the spirit of triumph are high. I believe that the April fighting once again proved this, and today, the spirit of patriotism is high not only in the army, but also in the society in general.”
Hasanov also noted that following the four-day war, the situation in the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has changed in favor of Azerbaijan.
On the night of Apr. 2, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers. The shelling resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.
Military operations were stopped on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies on Apr. 5 with the consent of the sides.
Ignoring the agreement, the Armenian side again started violating the ceasefire.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territory, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.