Baku, Azerbaijan, April 20
Trend:
The Congress of European Azerbaijanis has sent an appeal to the UN, OSCE, OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries in connection with the recent provocation by Armenia on the contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the State Committee on Work with Diaspora of Azerbaijan said in a message April 20.
The Armenian army that occupied Azerbaijani lands increased the number of provocations on the contact line of the troops, and this seriously worries the Azerbaijanis living in Europe, according to the appeal.
As a result of the Armenian Armed Forces’ shelling on April 18, a 27-year-old Rahim Hajiyev, a resident of the Yukhari Giyamaddinli village of Azerbaijan’s Agjabadi district, received a gunshot wound, the appeal said.
This incident greatly shocked the Congress of European Azerbaijanis, according to the appeal.
Artillery shelling of civilians and civilian facilities of Azerbaijan by the Armenian Armed Forces prove that the Armenian state, pursuing an aggressive policy, doesn’t observe the norms of international law and continues to seriously violate the international humanitarian law and human rights, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the addition number one, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the appeal said.
It is also noted that the US, France and Russia, the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, which assumed the mediation role in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, remain silent.
The international community’s ignoring the Armenian atrocities creates conditions for even greater freedom for the aggressor’s actions, and the impunity of crimes committed by Armenia leads to another murder of Azerbaijani civilians, the appeal said.
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.