Baku, Azerbaijan, July 5
By Seba Aghayeva – Trend:
Fragments of anti-tank shells were found when inspecting the Azerbaijani villages, Armenia’s armed forces had earlier shelled, said head of the press service of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office Eldar Sultanov, commenting on the latest developments on the contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops.
He made the remarks in Baku July 5 at a joint briefing attended by officials of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“A criminal case has already been initiated under seven articles of the Azerbaijani criminal code,” Sultanov said.
Examination of the victims’ bodies by forensic medical experts revealed that the Armenian side had used anti-tank shells, according to him.
Sultanov noted that this is not the first time Baku initiates a criminal case against the Armenian side, as the Armenian armed forces have already used force against Azerbaijani civilians.
On July 4 at about 20:40 (GMT+4 hours), the Armenian armed forces again violated ceasefire and, using 82-mm and 120-mm mortars and grenade launchers, shelled Azerbaijani positions and territories where the civilian population lives, namely the Alkhanli village of the country’s Fuzuli district, thereby grossly violating the requirements of international law, the Azerbaijani defense ministry said earlier.
As a result of this provocation, the residents of the village Sakhiba Guliyeva, 50, and Zakhra Guliyeva, 2, were killed. Servinaz Guliyeva, 52, who got wounded, was taken to the hospital and was operated on.
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 Azerbaijan, 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.