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Azerbaijan's Top Diplomat raised the mine issue at the OSCE meeting

01 December 2022 22:28 (UTC +04:00)

Contamination of the liberated territories with large-scale buried mines by Armenia is a major obstacle to reconstruction efforts and the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, Azerbaijan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov said at the 29th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE, APA reports.

"In 2020, after the signing of the tripartite statement, 268 people became victims of landmines. 45 people died, including 35 civilians. Armenia's failure to provide Azerbaijan with complete and accurate mine maps of all liberated areas is causing new deaths and injuries. About 55 percent of all mine incidents occur in areas where Armenia does not share any information about minefields. On the contrary, Armenia continues to spontaneously bury mines on the territory of Azerbaijan. Recently, 350 mines were discovered in the territory of Azerbaijan. All of them were produced in Armenia in 2021. In total, in 2021, more than 2.7 thousand mines produced in Armenia were found in the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan. These mines were transported through the corridor of Lachin. This is a clear exploitation of a corridor intended for humanitarian purposes only," said Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.