Azernews.Az

BAKU – The European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby, visiting Baku, on Monday expressed the EU’s concern over the recent shootings on the Armenia-Azerbaijan frontline.

Semneby declined to comment on Azerbaijani servicemen’s dead bodies remaining on the Armenian side of the contact line of the two countries’ troops.

"As for the bodies of the Azerbaijani ensigns, I would not want to comment on the details. This is the OSCE’s business, and there are other humanitarian organizations dealing with this issue."

Semneby expressed hope that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs brokering settlement to the Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh conflict would help to scrutinize the matter and move the peacemaking process forward.

Warrant officer Mubariz Ibrahimov displayed outstanding heroism during the clashes on June 18-19 near the frontline Terter region, single-handedly killing four Armenian soldiers and wounding four others. His corpse has not been returned to this day. President Ilham Aliyev has conferred Azerbaijani National Hero Award to the soldier.

Last Saturday, two more Azerbaijani servicemen were killed in another Armenian attack. Since one of them fell in the vicinity of the troops’ contact line, the Armenians took away his dead body.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict for two decades. Armenia has been occupying over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory since the early 1990s. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but efforts by the international mediators have been largely fruitless so far, and sporadic clashes on the frontline continue.