Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Following its occupation policy for over 20 years, Armenia continues to keep the situation on Nagorno-Karabakh undefined and fragile. In addition to illegally staying in 20 percent of internationally recognized Azerbaijani territories, the occupant country's armed units every day violate the ceasefire regime by firing Azerbaijani positions on the other side of the contact line.

In recent times, the Armenian armed units have even more increased their provocations. Although the Azerbaijani side timely suppresses these attempts, the situation on the contact line becomes unstable and dangerous.

As usual, on the night of November 2, the Armenian armed units once again fired the positions of the Azerbaijani armed forces located in the front line. In general, Armenian troops violated the ceasefire regime for a total of 26 times during the last day. However, the enemy was again silenced by firm return fire.

It is noteworthy that the latter attacks of Armenian units are carried out from more heavy weaponry than it used to be earlier – Azerbaijani troops get attacked by 60-millimeter mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. Moreover, Armenian units regularly try to carry out acts of sabotage on the contact line between the troops and by this aggravate the situation.

From this, it is obvious that Armenia tries to provoke Azerbaijan, and to start the next stage of the long-lasting war. The number of such attacks by the Armenian troops has highly intensified for the last days, and the responsibility for the deliberate aggravation of the situation in the front line entirely falls on the criminal military and political regime of Armenia.

In order to confront the Armenian provocations, Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov regularly meets with the Azerbaijani front-line troops and gives them appropriate instructions. If these provocations by Armenia continue, it can face again the tough response of Azerbaijan, like it did during the April fights when provoked Azerbaijani troops liberated a number of occupied Azerbaijani settlements and important heights. Given the big difference between the strength of Azerbaijani and Armenian armed forces, next time Armenian troops may lose not only several occupied villages, but all the territories they stole from Azerbaijan.

Speaking of the April clashes, it seems that Armenia still cannot perceive the loss of occupied Azerbaijani lands. After the fights, the Armenian government promised its population to return all lost positions by September, however it has not managed to do it. By such promises, the Armenian authorities try to distract attention of its citizens from the heavy internal problems which Armenians suffer from.

Armenia especially tries to return the strategically important heights of Talish village in Azerbaijani Terter region – that may be the main reason why Armenian units intensify provocations. Their aim is to find any weakness in Azerbaijani armed forces on the front line, however, the Azerbaijani troops manage to remain the dreams of Armenian occupants unfulfilled.

It seems that the recent visit of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in the region, who have held talks with both sides of the conflict and once again called on respecting the ceasefire regime, did not even influence the Armenian authorities. By lying to the Group co-chairs, Armenia continues attacks at Azerbaijani troops instead of coming to the negotiating table and resolve the problem peacefully.

The Azerbaijani side has numerously declared its readiness to discuss the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, and mentioned the possibility of coming to a compromise. 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, in the person of President Serzh Sargsyan, steps back and by this again freezes the peace talks. This is understandable – Armenian authorities are just afraid to completely lose the hope of their population, however, after all fails of authorities, it is questionable if Armenians believe in their government at all.

Hence, Armenia's main aim is quite obvious – it only wants to preserve the unstable status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh forever. This should be stopped immediately, and Armenia must change the every-day front-line provocations to coming to peace negotiations.

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

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