Baku, July 8, AZERTAC

Azerbaijani Cultural Center in Belgrade has issued a statement in connection with the killing by the Armenian armed forces of the Azerbaijani civilians.

The statement says: “In the evening of July 4, 2017, the Armenian Armed Forces located in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan fired into civilians and civil objects of the village of Alkhanly, Fuzuli region of Azerbaijan, from mortars and heavy grenade launchers. As a result of the shelling, civilians of this settlement, Guliyeva Sahiba, born in 1967, and her two-year-old granddaughter Guliyeva Zahra were killed. Another civilian - Guliyeva Sarvinaz, born in 1965, was injured, and civilian objects were damaged.”

“This is not the first time since the beginning of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the late 1980s that Armenian Armed Forces selectively target Azerbaijani civilian population – children, women and the elderly, as well as civilian objects. Thus, for example, on the night of 25 to 26 February 1992, the Armenian Armed Forces, with the direct participation of the 366th Motorized Infantry Regiment of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, seized the city of Khojaly. As a result, of the occupation of the city, 613 people were mercilessly killed, including 106 women, 63 children and 70 old people. 1275 residents of Khojaly were taken hostage and the fate of 150 remains unknown.”

The statement says: “Despite the ceasefire regime that has been formally in effect since 1994 between Armenia and

Azerbaijan, the Armenian Armed Forces continue the policy of violence against the peaceful population of Azerbaijan. For example, on March 7, 2011, a 10-year-old child, a resident of the village of Orta Garvend of the Agdam region of Azerbaijan, Fariz Arif oglu Badalov, was killed as a result of sniper fire by the Armenian Armed Forces. On July 14, 2011, 13-year-old Aygun Shahmaliyeva died as a result, of the explosion of a mine hidden in a toy, and her mother, Shakhmaliyeva Elnara, received severe injuries in the thigh area. The toy with the built-in explosive device had been lowered by the Armenian side into the Tovuz River, flowing through the village where these civilians lived.”

“These bloody acts once again confirm Armenia's policy of aggression and its ignoring the international legal norms, including UN Security Council Resolutions №. 822, 853, 874, 884 of 1993, which confirm the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan and contain the demand to withdraw the armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, as well as the UN General Assembly resolution “The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan” of March 14, 2008, the Resolution 1416 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe of 2005 and other similar documents.”

“The Azerbaijani Cultural Center in Belgrade states that the deliberate military actions of the Armenian armed forces against the Azerbaijani civilians and civilian objects constitute a grave violation of international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocol I, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” the statement says.

“The Azerbaijani Cultural Center in Belgrade calls on international organizations, including the OSCE Minsk Group, which is directly engaged in the peaceful settlement of the conflict, and the world community to condemn the above-mentioned actions of Armenia, demand the immediate withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and take decisive steps to reach a peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict,” the statement concludes.