Baku, November 3, AZERTAC

Nigeria-based Vanguard Media Limited daily newspaper has published an article by founder of Friends of Azerbaijan Organization in Nigeria, Azerbaijani diplomat Billura Bayramova headlined “Armenian-backed militias destabilizing fragile Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region”.

“On Wednesday, several people killed, and dozens wounded in attack on eastern Azerbaijan, as clash over Nagorno-Karabakh intensified.

Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of using cluster munitions in two days of attacks, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens in Barda, eastern Azerbaijan, near Nagorno-Karabakh,” the article says.

“According to Billura Bayramova, on September 27, 2020, major fighting broke out along the front lines of the decades-old Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

She said that far from being a small skirmish, fighting is taking place along the entire front-line.

The fighting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian militaries and Armenian-backed militias in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region could destabilize an already fragile region even further.

Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the newly independent countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan agreed and signed the Alma-Ata Protocols, which stated each country is committed to “recognizing and respecting each other’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of the existing borders.” This included the Azerbaijan S.S.R.’s Karabakh region remaining part of the newly established Republic of Azerbaijan.

By 1992, Armenian forces and Armenian-backed militias occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh region and all or parts of Azerbaijan’s Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Kalbajar, Lachin, Gubadli, and Zangilan districts. On this occupied territory Armenian separatists declared the so-called Republic which is a fictitious country and is not recognized by any other country in the world—even Armenia.

During 1992 and 1993, the U.N. Security Council adopted four resolutions on the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Each resolution confirmed the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan to include Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven surrounding districts, as well as calling for the withdrawal of all occupying forces from Azerbaijani territory. A cease-fire agreement was signed by all sides in 1994.

The Minsk Group was established by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) at the Budapest summit in 1994. The OSCE consists of 12 members, with France, Russia, and the United States serving as permanent co-chairs. The Minsk Group was tasked with bringing a lasting peace to the war, but over the years had difficulty finding a framework for negotiations to which all sides could agree,” the article says.

“The death toll in a recent Armenian missile attack on Azerbaijan’s Ganja city, despite a cease-fire, rose to nine including four women on Sunday.

As many as 34 others, among them 16 women and six children, are injured, the Prosecutor General’s Office in Azerbaijan said in a statement.

The Armenian attacks continued despite a humanitarian truce agreed on Saturday for the exchange of prisoners and retrieval of bodies in Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.

Assistant to Azerbaijani President Hikmat Hajiyev said the attacks were Armenia’s “policy of vandalism and barbarism” against Azerbaijani civilians, and “an act of genocide”. Attacking civilians with destructive missiles is a war crime, a manifestation of immoral behavior of Armenia’s political-military leadership, he tweeted.”

“The armistice came after a trilateral meeting in Moscow on Friday between the foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Between Sept. 27, when the clashes began, and October 11, as many as 41 Azerbaijani civilians have been killed and 205 injured. Some 1,165 houses, 57 residential and commercial buildings, and 146 public buildings have also been destroyed or damaged, the prosecutors said,” the article adds.