Armenia breaches truce, hinders peace talks
By Rashid Shirinov
While Baku does its utmost to find an early and effective solution to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Armenian side, in turn, makes every effort to preserve the long-standing problem unresolved.
This is particularly evidenced from never-ending cases of breaching the ceasefire by the Armenian militaries. Over the last few days, the Armenian Armed Forces have again intensified their provocations against Azerbaijan on the frontline.
Over the past 24 hours, Armenia’s armed forces have 124 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported on July 3. During the attacks, the aggressors were using large-caliber machine guns, grenade launchers, 60 and 82 millimeter mortars.
As a result, the positions of Azerbaijani Army in the villages of Gazakh, Tovuz and Gadabay regions, as well as positions on the frontline around Nagorno-Karabakh and other Armenia-occupied regions of Azerbaijan underwent fire from the Armenian positions.
Armenia tries to provoke Azerbaijan, and to hinder the peace talks. The number of such provocations by the Armenian troops has highly intensified during past months, and the responsibility for the deliberate aggravation of the situation in the frontline entirely falls on Armenia’s criminal military and political regime.
Yerevan has also turned a deaf ear to the recent statement of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, who visited the region in June and held talks with both the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides. The co-chairs called on the sides to reduce tensions on the frontline and re-engage in substantive negotiations; however, Armenia continues firing at Azerbaijani troops instead of coming to the negotiating table and resolve the problem by peaceful means.
The Azerbaijani side has many times voiced its readiness to peace. However, all this is being ignored by Armenia. As soon as the mediators manage to gain some success in the negotiation process, the Armenian side steps back and by this again freezes the peace talks.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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