Army

Home page

Army

Armenian soldier killed by Azerbaijani retaliatory fire

27 October 2016 08:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku – APA. Armenian soldier Gurgen Ayvazyan, 20, was killed as Azerbaijani army carried out strikes on Armenian positions in response to the enemy sabotage attempt on October 26 evening, according to Armenian media.

On October 26 evening, the Armenian armed forces, taking advantage of adverse weather, resorted to a sabotage attempt by approaching the Azerbaijani army positions in the southern direction of the frontline, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said on Oct. 27.

Azerbaijani army detected the enemy’s actions in advance and carried out preventive strikes on the enemy’s positions. Suffering losses in dead and injured, the Armenian side had to retreat.

The military and political leadership of Armenia bears responsibility for the escalation of the tension on the contact line of troops, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry warned.

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 which includes 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.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.