AZERBAIJANI PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO UN INFORMS UN SECRETARY GENERAL ABOUT ONGOING CEASEFIRE VIOLATION BY ARMENIAN ARMED FORCES
S.Agayeva
Trend
Aug 16, 2011
Azerbaijan
The Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the United Nations,
Agshin Mehdiyev sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
UN information center reported.
Mehdiyev informed Ban Ki-moon about ongoing violations of the
ceasefire by the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia, recorded
for the month of July 2011. “As a result of these violations and
the terrorist act committed by the Armenian side on 14 July 2011,
during the aforementioned period a 13-year-old Azerbaijani girl and
one officer of the armed forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan were
killed and two Azerbaijani civilians were seriously wounded,” the
letter reads.
The letter says the increasing number of casualties over the past
several months among Azerbaijani civilians residing in the front-line
areas represents yet another piece of evidence testifying to Armenia’s
apparent disregard of its obligations under international law and in
the context of the ongoing conflict settlement process.
In their joint statement of 26 May 2011 made in Deauville, France,
the Presidents of France, the Russian Federation and the United
States of America – the countries co-chairing the Minsk Group of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – inter alia,
strongly urged the sides to prepare their populations for peace,
not war. The Armenian side responded to this call in the manner so
characteristic of it.
According to the letter, the Armenian side responded to this call in
the manner so characteristic of it.
In addition to intensified attacks on Azerbaijani civilians and
civilian objects across the front line and the recent uncontrollable
surge of hostile rhetoric towards Azerbaijan from the Armenian
leadership, President Serzh Sargsyan of the Republic of Armenia went
farther ahead and once and for all shattered the artificially imposed
myth of his Government’s ability to engage in a constructive search
for peace in the region.
At a meeting with the participants in the fifth Pan-Armenian Olympiad
for the Armenian Language, Literature and Armenian Studies, held in
Gara Chichek (Tsakhkadzor), Armenia, on 25 July 2011, the head of the
Armenian State instructed the youth of his country to continue the
implementation of the policy of hatred and mistrust among the peoples
of the region. Thus, in response to the question of a student about
the perspectives of expanding Armenia’s territory at the expense of
neighbouring Turkey, Serzh Sargsyan said that the realization of this
duty would depend on the efforts of the new generation and referred
as an example to the fulfilment of the task of capturing a part of
what he called “our fatherland – Karabakh”.
“In other words, instead of preparing its people for peace and a
prosperous and stable future in friendship and cooperation with the
neighbouring nations, the President of Armenia openly incites the
youth and future generations of his country to new wars and violence.
It is notable that the Armenian President’s belief in this adventurist
idea is based on the conviction that his “nation … always rises from
the ashes like the phoenix – again and again”. Accordingly, the head
of the Armenian State considers it possible to plunge his own people
and the region as a whole into new wars and an abyss of misery for
the realization of the disastrous political agenda”, the letter reads.
The letter says President Serzh Sargsyan has not confined himself
to the above-mentioned harmful views and continued sharing them at
the joint press conference with the President of Poland in Yerevan
on 28 July 2011. This time he was deeply absorbed in discussing the
issues pertaining to the sovereign territory of another State – the
Republic of Azerbaijan. According to the President of Armenia, “the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict … erupted as a result of the violation
of the Nagorno Karabakh people’s right for self-determination” and
“the legitimate right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to master
their own destiny, to have security guarantees and prosper in their
historical land must be respected”. Every single word in these and
other comments about the conflict, its causes and consequences and
the peace process made by the head of the Armenian State during the
press conference is pure fiction, to say the least.
It has been internationally recognized, including by the principal
organs of the United Nations, that Armenia unleashed the war, attacked
Azerbaijan and occupied its territories, including the Daghlyq Garabagh
(Nagorno Karabakh) region, carried out ethnic cleansing on a massive
scale, perpetrated other heinous crimes in the course of the war and
established the ethnically constructed subordinate separatist entity
on the captured Azerbaijani territory.
According to Mehdiyev, the President of Armenia, who bears personal
responsibility for horrible atrocities against Azerbaijani civilians,
must be well aware that what he considers “the violation of the
Nagorno Karabakh people’s right for self-determination” has been
unequivocally qualified by the United Nations Security Council and
the General Assembly, as well as by other authoritative international
organizations, as the illegal use of force against the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and other egregious
violations of the Charter of the United Nations and international law.
“Moreover, the Republic of Azerbaijan considers historical assertions
of the Armenian side, a vivid example of which is the reference by
the President of Armenia to the occupied Daghlyq Garabagh region
of Azerbaijan as allegedly the occupiers’ “historical land” or
“fatherland”, as false and having the sole purpose of misleading
the international community and justifying the policy of violent
territorial expansionism,” the letter reads.
According to the letter, having implemented the total ethnic cleansing
of both the territory of Armenia and the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan of all non-Armenians and thus succeeded in creating
the uniquely mono-ethnic culture in these areas, the leadership of
Armenia long ago unveiled its annexationist intentions, at the core
of which are historical delusions and racial animosity. The defiant
behaviour of those high-ranking officials in Armenia opposing the
perspectives of a peaceful and prosperous future for the region,
ordering the targeting of Azerbaijani civilians, including children,
manipulating public opinion and trying to delude the international
community leaves no doubt as to their unwillingness to work for peace
and attempts to provoke large-scale destabilization.
“We are confident that the leadership of Armenia will be obliged
to cease its provocative policy, to ensure that the occupation of
Azerbaijani territory is ended, to denounce its territorial claims
towards neighbouring nations and to establish civilized relations
with all countries of the region. The Republic of Azerbaijan sincerely
believes that there is no alternative to peace, stability and mutually
beneficial regional cooperation,” the letter reads.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. –
are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.