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Armenia afraid to accept undeniable truth

7 December 2016 16:00 (UTC+04:00)
Armenia afraid to accept undeniable truth

By Rashid Shirinov

The Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office based in Yerevan has criticized the miserable situation in the Armenian Amy, bringing attention to poor armament and lack of necessary war ammunition and military equipment.

Armenia keeps under occupation 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, which it mostly teared off over 20 years ago through support of the then Soviet regime.

Armenia, which is regarded as the poorest country among post Soviet republics, continues to occupy twenty percent of Azerbaijani territories, but fails to provide serviceable military equipment for its soldiers.

A report by the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office revealed insufficient quantity of arms and ammunition at the disposal of the Armenian servicemen during the April clashes on the contact line of the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops.

The situation on the frontline aggravated on April 2 after the Armenian military units in the occupied lands began shelling Azerbaijan’s positions. To protect civilian population, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched counter attacks and as a result, the Azerbaijani troops retook hills around the village of Talish, as well as Seysulan settlement, and also took over Lele Tepe hill located in the direction of Fizuli region.

Azerbaijan and Armenia declared a truce brokered by Russia on April 5. But, Armenia continued to breach the ceasefire, firing the worst violence in more than 20 years in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.

Over 320 Armenian servicemen were killed, more than 500 Armenian soldiers were injured, 30 enemy tanks and other armored vehicles, as well as more than 25 artillery pieces were destroyed during the counter attacks of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported, while Armenian side hide the real figures saying that only 80 soldiers died .

The reason of the weak performance of Armenian soldiers resulted from strong counter attack of the Azerbaijani side, but also poor situation of the Armenian army is also viewed as a reason. The relatives of the serviceman link the great number of the deaths with the insufficient quantity of armament, arms and ammunition.

The Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office has spoken with relatives of soldiers killed in the April battles. The parents, who did not receive any explanations regarding the deaths of their sons, were often going to the front to learn the truth. And the truth was terrible…

As it turned out, soldiers were dying, not having even bullets, and the tanks could not go into battle, as they had water instead of fuel.

For example, relatives of an Armenian soldier who died in the clashes told that they saw “a lot of faulty tanks, many of which had water as the fuel, and when the engine was turned on, it went off.”

“There were quite a number of defective tanks on the way from Gubadli to Jabrayil [the occupied regions of Azerbaijan], many of which were filled with water, instead of fuel, and when the engine was turned on to start to the frontline, it broke down," a relative of one of the dead soldiers said.

The fellow servicemen, who met with the deceased soldier’s relatives, said they had “a lot to say”, but they could not speak of it during their military service.

The father of another soldier was shocked by the condition of the Armenian occupant’s military equipment. “Why did not the tanks go ahead? Because they had no batteries as they were put on sale in the markets.” There were not enough bullets and bullet-proof vests as well, he said.

The report revealed that even during the hostilities the cases of deaths triggered by breach of statutory relations and accidents occurred in the Armed Forces constitute 20 percent out of the total number of deaths.

The Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office’s report reveals the appalling truth that shows the miserable situation. However, the Armenian government again tried to refuse it.

“The Armenian Defense Ministry will study the report of Helsinki citizens Assembly concerning the four-day war, and will provide an official response,” the press secretary of the Armenian Defense Ministry Artsrun Hovhannisyan told reporters.

He could not think of anything better than to call the report “unprofessional” and “based on emotions of relatives of the dead soldiers.”

Yerevan still opposes every truth, including the one that all the horrors that Armenian families experience can be stopped with stopping the aggressive policy – to withdraw Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh lands.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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