NKR URGES OSCE TO CONDUCT THOROUGH, UNBIASED INVESTIGATION INTO INCIDENT WITH AZERI CHILD
PanARMENIAN.Net
March 15, 2011 – 14:37 AMT 10:37 GMT
Chairman of the NKR National Assembly standing committee on foreign
relations Vahram Atanesyan said that the NKR Defense Army is not
involved in the death of the eight-year-old Azerbaijani child.
Most likely, the young Azerbaijani citizen has become a victim of an
accident, or has been killed as a result of Azerbaijani servicemen’s
arbitrary behavior, according to him.
“Judging from the situation in the Azerbaijani army, where tragic
events took place recently, it is possible that the child was killed
by an Azerbaijani serviceman. The Armenian parties are not responsible
for the child’s death. One cannot but hope that the OSCE Minsk Group
Co-Chairs and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office
will call on the Azerbaijani leadership to participate in a thorough
and unbiased investigation of the incident. The mediators should be
interested in a fair investigation of the incident,” Atanesyan said.
On March 9, Azerbaijani media reported that allegedly “the Armenian
armed forces killed an Azerbaijani child on March 8.” Meanwhile,
the reports were controversial – some of them stated that the boy was
eight, while others spoke about resident of Orta Karvend settlement
Farid Badalov, a ten-year-old boy.
Later, the press services of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and
Defense of NKR issued a joint statement condemning false accusations
of Azerbaijani side.
“The Azerbaijani official propaganda continues aggravating the
situation on the occasion of the Azerbaijani boy’s death in the
frontier village of Orta Karvend, intensively spreading false
accusations against the Karabakh party,” the statement said.
“Careful investigation of the case can discover some facts testifying
to the fabricated accusations of official Baku. During the March
10 monitoring conducted by the OSCE Mission in the noted place,
the Karabakh party drew the attention of the monitoring group to the
following facts: The distance between the front positions of the NKR
Defense Army and the village of Orta Karvend makes 1400-1500 meters,
i.e. to hit a man with adjusted fire from a SVD sniper rifle is
impossible in this case; the relief of the noted section doesn’t allow
adjusted firing from the positions of the NKR Defense Army towards the
opponent, as the latter has height privileges; according to reliable
sources, for more accurate firing at the NKR Defense Army’s positions
from Orta Karvend, the Azerbaijani soldiers climb the houses’ roofs.
The very houses, in the yards of which ‘boys play’; in the frontier
villages, people usually settle in the middle or back, i.e. the safer
area of the settlement and not in its front section. According to the
Azerbaijani mass media information, everything is just the contrary
in Orta Karvend, and the yards, where ‘children play’, are, for some
reason, situated as close to the front line as possible; even if the
child was killed by firing, still it should be established who and
from what side fired. It isn’t excluded that Fariz Badalov could be
a victim of firing by the Azerbaijani pointsmen between the villages
of Orta Karvend and Shykhlar. It isn’t excluded either that the boy
could have perished as a result of careless handling of unexploded
ammunition, which often happens in the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict
zone, on both sides of the contact-line. If the shot was not fired
straightly at the target, but up on-the-mitre, so the bullet, shot
from a simple gun, could not fly so far. High calibre machineguns
can fire at such a distance. But, according to the Azerbaijani mass
media information, the child died on the way to the hospital. If the
shot had been fired from a high calibre gun, so it would have merely
smashed the child’s head.”
“Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani official propaganda doesn’t disdain
any methods, even cashing in on children’s life and death. The Armenian
parties are strangers to fascist methods used by Azerbaijan – killing
children, asleep men, and hostages, making subversives and terrorists
national heroes, and others.
Every time, after the Presidents’ meetings or before a visit of the
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen to the region, the Azerbaijani propaganda
machine increases the tension on the contact-line. Another example
was the March 10 death of 19-year-old soldier of the NKR Defense Army
Arthur Aghababian as a result of the firing from the Azerbaijani side.
The incident took place almost immediately after the OSCE monitoring
of the NKR and Azerbaijani armed forces’ contact-line. This is
rough violation of the agreements on confidence building measures
achieved on March 5 in Sochi as a result of the Armenian, Russian,
and Azerbaijani Presidents’ meeting. While, on the initiative of the
Armenian parties, the mediators once again offer drawing off snipers
from the front line, official Baku doesn’t only block this initiative,
but also intensifies the sniper war and with its provocative actions
reduces to zero the efforts of the international community on peaceful
settlement of the Karabakh conflict.”
“The international community must strictly condemn similar actions of
the Azerbaijani leadership and apply corresponding sanctions against
it,” the statement concluded.
From: A. Papazian