Baku urges int’l community to compel Armenia to honor commitments
By Vugar Khalilov
Baku has urged the international community to exert pressure on Armenia to ensure that it fulfills its international obligations, Azernews reports, citing the Foreign Ministry.
Pressure should be exerted on Armenia to ensure that it fulfills its obligations under the trilateral declaration and international law, which include ceasing activities that endanger Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity, eventually withdrawing all of its military forces from Azerbaijani territory, ceasing indiscriminately planting mines, cooperating in demining initiatives, and providing Azerbaijan with accurate mine maps. These efforts will help to ensure regional peace and security, the ministry emphasized.
The ministry emphasized that Armenia's deliberate mine-planting activities, both during and after the 30 years of occupation, are the main obstacles to Azerbaijan's reconstruction activities in liberated territories, posing a threat to civilians and military personnel's lives and impeding the return of internally displaced Azerbaijanis to their homelands.
Armenia continues its illegal military activities in the Azerbaijani territories in violation of paragraph 4 of the Trilateral statement (November 10, 2020) by failing to fully withdraw its military forces and planting a large number of anti-personnel mines there, which leads to the growth of the number of landmines not only along the former line of contact but also in other areas, the ministry underlined.
"In general, over the past 30 years, the number of victims of mine explosions in Azerbaijan amounted to 3,345 people. A total of 266 citizens became landmine victims, of which 48 people died, including three reporters from the end of the Second Karabakh War. Of the 45 dead, 35 are civilians. Moreover, 38 women and 357 children became the victims of landmines over the past 30 years," the ministry detailed.
Furthermore, the discovery of over 1,400 E-001M mines manufactured in Armenia in 2021 in Lachin District following the illegal Armenian settlers' departure from the city, as well as new booby traps installed on the doorsteps of houses and in courtyards in Zabukh and Sus villages on October 3, demonstrate Armenia's serious threat to regional peace and security.
The placement of mines on Azerbaijani soil reveals that, despite the fact that the Lachin corridor is designed solely for the transit of citizens, commodities, and vehicles, as stated in paragraph 6 of the tripartite declaration, Armenia continues to exploit it for unlawful military activities. Furthermore, it demonstrates that allegations that Armenia has neither created nor sold landmines in recent decades are false, the ministry underlined.
It was recalled that the major reason for the military clashes on the state border on September 13-14 was the provocation of the Armenian armed forces to put mines on Azerbaijani military units' supply road.
The ministry stated that the accuracy of the mine maps provided by Armenia following the signing of the trilateral statement on November 10, 2020, is barely 25 percent. Approximately, 55 percent of recent mine explosions have occurred in mined regions that are not indicated on the maps, the existence of which Armenia initially denied, it added.
The said evidence demonstrates that Armenia continues posing threats against Azerbaijan. Armenia's behavior is a war crime, a significant breach of international humanitarian law and its own commitments, and the country should be pressured to stop it, the ministry stressed.
Azerbaijan has consistently requested that efforts should be mobilized to eradicate these dangers and give large-scale support to its humanitarian demining operations.
In this regard, on August 23, 2022, the Azerbaijani foreign minister addressed a corresponding letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, which was distributed among all UN members.
Azerbaijan also formally provided information to the International Court of Justice regarding Armenia's ongoing mining of its territories in September 2022, which obviously contradicts the court's temporary decisions of December 7, 2021.
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