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Yerevan turns terrorism, separatism into state policy

26 January 2015 18:45 (UTC+04:00)
Yerevan turns terrorism, separatism into state policy

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijan’s high-ranking official has blamed the Armenian leadership for following a policy of aggression.

“Armenia has turned terrorism and aggressive separatism into the basis of its government policy,” said Eldar Mahmudov, Azerbaijani Minister of National Security and Chairman of State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Citizens.

There is still much to be done in order to resolve the humanitarian problems resulted from Armenia’s military aggression against Azerbaijan, Mahmudov said during the commission’s meeting, the Commission reported on January 24.

He added that as long as the current status quo remains unchanged, it will be impossible to completely prevent the humanitarian catastrophe.

Mahmudov went on to say that Armenia’s attempts to commit provocative acts of sabotage on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian armies throughout 2014 prove that.

The Armenian armed forces have periodically violated the ceasefire agreement with Azerbaijan, reached in 1994 after a bloody war, with attacking positions of the Azerbaijani armed forces and exposing the villages located near the contact line of troops to an intensive shelling.

Mahmudov further noted that Armenian provocations are not limited to truce violations. It also continued provocative acts against the civilian population.

He cited as an example capturing of Azerbaijanis in occupied Kalbajar region by Armenian forces.

“After the incident, Armenia demonstrated inhumane position and spread completely false information,” Mahmudov said.

Armenian special forces killed Azerbaijani citizen Hasan Hasanov and took hostage Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov in the Shaplar village of the occupied Kalbajar region on July 11. The civilians were visiting the graves of their relatives.

Following the so-called “judicial process" Dilgam Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Shahbaz Guliyev to 22 years in prison.

Mahmudov noted that the question of hostages timely and reasonably was raised by Baku before various international organizations, however, in spite of all the efforts, it was impossible to free the hostages due to the unconstructive position of the opposite side.

He reminded that the process of returning corpse of Hasan Hasanov was delayed for three months.

Mahmudov also added that the separatist regime in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region organized a show trial, noting that decisions of the court of separatist regime, which is not recognized by any country, have no legal basis and are unacceptable.

He stressed that this is another attempt of Armenia to turn the victims of war into a means of political pressure.

Despite repeated calls by the international organizations and foreign countries on Armenia to return the captives back to their country, nothing has been made in this regard so far.

The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left without home over a million of civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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