Presidential aide: Armenia seeks to widen geography of conflict
By Ayya Lmahamad
Azerbaijani President’s Aide Hikmat Hajiyev has said that Armenia seeks to enlarge the geography of the conflict with Azerbaijan and continues to launch missile attacks on civilians amid the humanitarian ceasefire.
In a Twitter post made on October 14, Hajiyev said that missile attacks against Azerbaijan are launched from Armenia's territory.
"Armenia aims to expand the conflict's geography and involve third parties in the conflict. Azerbaijan does not have any military targets within the Armenian territory.”
He stressed that the "SCUD" type ballistic missile fired on the densely populated district in the city of Ganja on October 11 was also launched from Armenia's territory.
"The use of a SCUD missile with enormous destructive power, beyond the combat operations zone and against the civilians, is the first such instance across the OSCE space. It is one of the rare occurrences witnessed in the latest military conflicts around the world by any large.”
Furthermore, he said that Armenia's Tactical Operational Missile system have been brought to combat readiness and to launch positions in the early morning hours today, again targeting Azerbaijan's Ganja, Mingechevir and other cities.
"Those ready-to-launch missile systems have been identified as legitimate military targets and neutralized by a preventive strike to save innocent civilian lives. Armenia's defense ministry itself was forced to acknowledge that the missiles were indeed brought to combat readiness.”
Additionally, he noted that since 07:00 on October 14, the city of Terter and villages of Aghdam region are under fire, resulting in the death of one civilian, and wounding eight people. Moreover, Azerbaijan State Television's camera crew is among the wounded. In addition, an artillery shell has landed in the school front yard in Duyarli village. Overall, nearly 100 artillery shells have been launched.
"Azerbaijan remains committed to the humanitarian ceasefire. However, Azerbaijan reserves the rights to neutralize legitimate military targets if Azerbaijan's military and civilian installations and innocent civilians come under missile and other attacks from Armenia's territory," Hajiyev stated.
Armenian armed forces launched a large-scale operation in the front-line zone on September 27 at 6 am, shelling the positions of the Azerbaijani army from large-calibre weapons, mortars, and artillery installations of various calibres. Armenia has been targeting Azerbaijan’s densely populated areas and infrastructure projects.
Forty-three civilians have been killed and 214 others have been injured since the outbreak of large-scale hostilities on September 27, after Armenia launched another attack along the line of contact. As a result of the shelling of civilian infrastructure facilities by the occupying country's armed forces, 1,505 houses and 66 multi-apartment residential buildings, as well as 277 civilian facilities were severely damaged.
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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad
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