Armenia shells Azerbaijani positions in Tovuz
By Vugar Khalilov
Armenia’s armed units have shelled the Azerbaijani army’s position in northwestern Tovuz region on the state border, the Defence Ministry reported on April 4.
In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said: “At 2300 on April 3, the Armenian armed forces units from the positions in Musurskend settlement of Tovuzgala region of the state border, subjected to fire the positions of the Azerbaijan army in the direction of Aghdam settlement of Tovuz region”.
The Azerbaijani army units took appropriate retaliatory measures to suppress the opposite side. The ministry ruled out any causalities among the Azerbaijani military personnel and equipment.
On the eve of a trilateral meeting with European Council President Charles Michel and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels on April 6, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that peace will return to the Caucasus based on the five principles Baku recently proposed for normalizing relations with Armenia.
He made the remarks during a meeting with Polish Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Zbigniew Rau on March 31.
“The five principles we have initiated reflect the norms of international law and good international conduct... Reciprocal recognition of territorial integrity and inviolability of international borders, and then the delimitation of borders – I think that peace will come to the Caucasus on this basis. We want it,” he said.
The president emphasized that these principles are fundamental to any country's interstate relations.
“We are seeing the potential for active cooperation amongst the three countries of the South Caucasus, and I think that this will be important not only for these countries but also for the wider region,” he said.
The trilateral ceasefire deal signed by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders on November 10, 2020, ended the three-decade conflict over Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region which along with the seven adjacent regions came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s.
The deal also stipulated the return of Azerbaijan's Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions. Before the signing of the peace deal, Azerbaijan liberated 300 villages, settlements, city centers, and historic Shusha city that had been under Armenian occupation for about 30 years.
On January 11, 2021, the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders signed the second statement since the end of the 44-day war. The newly-signed statement was set to implement clause 9 of the November 2020 statement related to the unblocking of all economic and transport communications in the region.
On November 26, 2021, the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders signed a statement and agreed on a number of issues, including the demarcation and delimitation of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border by late 2021, some points related to humanitarian issues and the issue of unblocking of transport corridors which applies to the railway and to automobile communications.
On December 14, 2021, during the Brussels meeting, organized between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders at the initiative of European Council President Charles Michel, the sides reaffirmed their commitment to the conditions agreed in the Sochi meeting.
Both sides agreed to establish a temporary working group on the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The issue of demining the liberated territories of Azerbaijan was also brought up on the agenda, and the European Union's readiness to provide technical assistance to Azerbaijan in this regard was underlined at the meeting.
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