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Armenian drone drops explosive on Azerbaijani territory: Defense Ministry

13 January 2017 13:12 (UTC +04:00)

A drone belonging to the Armenian Armed Forces dropped a home-made explosive on the territory of Azerbaijan's border district Tovuz on Jan. 12, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told APA on Jan. 13.

Azerbaijan's defense ministry accused Armenia of resorting to another provocation in order to aggravate the situation along the Azerbaijani-Armenian border.

“The use by the enemy of such explosives of unknown origin is aimed at causing damage to the personnel of Azerbaijani military units on frontline, as well as the civilian population residing in the border areas,” the defense ministry noted.

“After the explosive devise was defused, it was found that it consists of an electric detonator, a detonating cord, batteries for its activating and metal elements, the ministry said," the ministry added.

Azerbaijan’s defense ministry stated that the purposeful use of these internationally prohibited explosives by Armenia at the border with Azerbaijan is aimed at escalating the situation, instigate Azerbaijan to take retaliatory action, and by this means draw the attention to the conflict of the military-political bloc it is aligned with.

The defense ministry warned that the criminal military and political leadership of Armenia is fully responsible for a possible incident and its consequences.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in Dec.1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.