Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The sounds of shootings on the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops haven’t ceased this year. Though the recent meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents in Bern was expected to hush the intensive ceasefire breaches on the contact line, the situation indeed has worsened even more.

Armenia’s sabotage and provocative moves on the contact line aggravated since early 2015, and the recent developments on frontline and shelling of the Azerbaijani positions and settlements located near the contact line do not seem to end anytime soon.

The Azerbaijani side warned that the more often the Armenian army violates the ceasefire and shells the settlements and peaceful Azerbaijani population, the greater will be the Azerbaijani Armed Force’s retaliatory fire strikes from large-caliber weapons.

Unable to withstand Azerbaijan’s strong response, the Armenian leadership disseminates false information about the real situation on the contact line. With such methods, the military junta tries to conceal the number of losses from the public in order not to rise new wave of protests in the country.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry noted that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces used only a small portion of the available weapons.

“We have not yet demonstrated the full destructive power of our arms, and Armenia is aware of this. The Ministry has repeatedly stated that, if necessary, will use other weapons at our disposal. After use of these weapons the enemy’s loss will increase many times, and it has to understand this,” Colonel Vagif Dargahli, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend.

He said if the Armenians think of their youth and their future, they should leave the occupied Azerbaijani lands.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. The peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group have been largely fruitless so far.

Although the co-chair countries of the mediating Minsk Group - the United States, Russia and France - supported the idea of confidence-building measures between the sides, Yerevan continue resorting provocation against Baku escalating tension on the contact line of two countries’ troops.

Dargahli stressed that it is the Armenian army who every day artificially escalates the situation on the contact line and shell Azerbaijani villages, located near the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and contact line.

“Every year, dozens of civilians are killed and injured by the shots of the Armenians. The international organizations, including OSCE are aware of it,” he underlined

Civilians are the frequent target of the Armenian Armed Forces, who wound residents of the frontal villages in their homes or on their farms. The ceasefire violations committed by the Armenian military paralyze life in the frontline areas, while the constant shelling has impaired daily routine of local people.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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