Azernews.Az

By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijan has control over the roads linking Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, the Defense Ministry said in a statement made on June 11.

The ministry stressed that the roads linking Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh have been taken under control as a result of the successful military operations of the Azerbaijani Army in 2016 and 2018.

“Our strategically favourable situation forces the adversary to build new roads at great expense. The firearms in the armament of the Azerbaijani Army are capable of destroying the adversary's military infrastructure in the entire depths of operation”.

Earlier, on June 10, the European Parliament adopted a joint statement condemning the construction of a new highway between Armenia and Azerbaijan’s occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Thus, the statement said that the decision to build this highway has been taken without the consent of the competent authorities of Azerbaijan –in violation of international law. In addition, it could symbolically entrench the illegal occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and of its surrounding districts

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Group’s efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

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