Hikmet Hajiyev: Armenia abuses water as means of ‘ecological terror’

Hikmet Hajiyev: Armenia abuses water as means of ‘ecological terror’
# 22 March 2018 13:10 (UTC +04:00)

“A large body of Azerbaijan’s water resources—the Sarsang water reservoir in particular—is under Armenian occupation,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikmet Hajiyev told APA.

Hajiyev noted that 22 March has been designated as the World Water Day by the UN General Assembly, saying efficient management of water resources and people’s provision with water are an important part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for the period 2015-2030.

Hajiyev went on to stress that Armenia abuses water as a means of “ecological terror” by contaminating the rivers flow through the territory of Azerbaijan.

“We strongly condemn Armenia for contaminating our water resources and abusing them as a means of terror. We think it is high time the international community paid attention to this problem,” he said.

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 1994.

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.

Nagorno Garabagh

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