Baku, Azerbaijan, July 8
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
While the whole world has been horrified by photos of a little Azerbaijani girl killed by the Armenian armed forces, it was rather discouraging to see the general approach in the OSCE Minsk Group’s statement, which contained condolences to the victims of Armenian aggression and appeals to both sides of the conflict to refrain from further escalation.
However, three days later, the mediators suddenly made a rather tough statement, in which they called Armenia’s shelling of Azerbaijan’s Alkhanly village a provocation aimed at undermining the negotiations.
This absolutely transparent message is clear to everyone, Armenia really doesn’t shun anything, including the murders of civilians, in order to delay the adoption of decisions aimed at changing the status quo.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the only justification for the former Karabakh generals led by Serzh Sargsyan to stay in power.
As soon as the conflict is resolved, Sargsyan and his companions will leave their posts, and this means that they give orders to prolong the occupation for years to come.
Yerevan’s reluctance to start active participation in the negotiations has forced all international institutions and mediators to unanimously urge Yerevan to hold substantive, that is, concrete talks, and not the protocol meetings profitable for Yerevan.
But why did the mediators suddenly call Armenia’s behavior a provocation? The case is that killing a child is always something more than simply the death of civilians, although, all these events are terrible, of course.
However, it was the death of a little girl that made the world finally get enraged by the arbitrariness of the occupying Armenian troops in the Azerbaijani territories, while the intermediaries continue to peaceably and sluggishly urge the conflict sides to negotiate.
The multiple statements from the most influential international institutions and politicians, the publications in the foreign press and the protests of people around the world against the Armenians’ military crime against civilians, made the OSCE Minsk Group realize that it will not able, at this time, to retreat into generalities, as the whole world has already determined the true culprit.
The fact that Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk visited the site of the Armenian shelling, a group of military attaches accredited in Azerbaijan and representatives of foreign media visited the Alkhanli village, also played its role. All this certainly had influence on the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to finally deliver a fair verdict to the aggressor, calling its actions a provocation.
Unfortunately, while the international community does not take real action and make Yerevan withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani territories, clashes and bloodshed will continue. But until this happens, on the Azerbaijani side, ordinary people will continue to live near the line of contact and the military will be stationed on the Armenian side that will continue to shoot at civilians, including children, each time Sargsyan is afraid to lose his seat.
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Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agency’s Russian news service, follow her on Twitter:@EmmaTariver