Azernews.Az

Shabnam Hasanova, Political Analyst, Ph.D. candidate in Political Science

On 24 September 2020 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, while delivering a speech at general debates of 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly in a video format and on 25 September 2020 while receiving EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar, informed the international community that hostile declarations and provocations of Armenian leadership revealed Armenia's plans on new aggression against Azerbaijan.

The president called on the United Nations, European Commission and whole international community to urge Armenia to prevent its recent provocations and another military aggression. The president also emphasized that Azerbaijan was aware that intensive military training was underway and that Azerbaijani side would defend itself as it had already been done when Armenia launched attacks in direction of Tovuz and many other cases.

Contrary to Azerbaijan's effective communication, under the mediation of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Armenia has deliberately been undermining the format and content of the negotiation process.

The comments by Armenian Defense Minister David Tonoyan at a meeting with the Armenian community in New York on "new war for new territories" instead of "peace for territories" concept was one more admittance by the high-ranking Armenian representative of hostile policy of this country. The declaration by Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan that "Karabakh is Armenia" completely destroyed the mechanism of negotiations. The so-called inauguration of Nagorno-Karabakh's so called leader in the historical Azerbaijani city of Shusha and moving the so-called "parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh” from Khankandi to Shusha were other provocations by Armenia.

Also, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's wife, Anna Hakobyan, appeared with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in her hands during a military exercise in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh with the Armenian Army at a time of rising clashes. This happened one year after her call “fight for peace”. This also negatively affected the ongoing negotiation process. All this, along with Armenia’s latest aggression on the border are indicators that the official Yerevan is actually not interested in the mediated settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute.

So what happened? On September 27, Armenian armed forces again flagrantly breached the ceasefire agreement engaging in large-scale military actions, subjected to in-depth bombing from large-caliber weapons, mortars and artillery mounts of different calibers of the Azerbaijan Army positions along the total length of the front and residential areas. Besides continually shelling Azerbaijani settlements by using heavy artillery, the Armenian Armed Forces also caused significant damage to the population’s property, infrastructure.

Through these acts Armenia blatantly breaches international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its obligations in this respect.

Throughout the night of October 3, Azerbaijan's Terter city and Sahlaabad, Gazyan, Gapanli, Qaynaq, Askipara, Husanli villages of the district, Ayag Garvand, Imamgulubeyli, Garadagli, Tazakend villages of Aghdam district and Muganli, Qiyameddinli, Ranjbarlar and Tapgaragoyunlu villages of Goranboy district were subjected to heavy artillery fire by the Armenian Armed Forces. Decisive response measures were being taken by the Azerbaijani army. Unfortunately, the Armenian army not only strikes at Azerbaijan's villages, but also attacks local and international media representatives on the frontline conducting their professional duty.

Despite Armenia’s shelling due to the successful operations by Azerbaijani Armed forces 6 villages in the Fuzuli-Jarbayil direction and Madagiz (recently renamed by Azerbaijan to Sugovushan) were liberated from the occupation. On the same day, the Azerbaijani Army liberated several more villages in Tartar, Jabrayil and Fuzuli district and city of Jabrayil and several villages of the district from the occupation.

On October 4, the Armenian Armed Forces again blatantly breached the norms and principles of international law, the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, the decisions and resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, intentionally shelled the civilians of Azerbaijan, shelled the heavily populated areas of Ganja. One person was killed and 32 were injured as a result of rocket and artillery shelling in Ganja, the second largest city in Azerbaijan. Intense battles continue along the entire front. Azerbaijani residential areas in different directions of the front have been subjected to heavy artillery and missile fire from Armenia.

The other side of the issue is the information warfare. Thus, the battle is not only in the trenches, but also inside the information space. Currently the Armenian news machine by producing various, baseless fake news is trying deceive the world community. For instance, all the allegations that Turkey is involved as a party to the dispute spread by the Armenian side are misleading.