Azerbaijan vs Armenia [Nagorno-Karabakh conflict]

Moscow concerned about deteriorating situation in Karabakh region

MOSCOW, August 02 /ITAR-TASS/. Moscow on Saturday voiced concern about the latest flare-ups in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area and urged the parties involved to refrain from using force and take steps towards stabilising the situation in the region.

“We express serious concern about the dramatic deterioration of the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area, which has resulted in considerable casualties,” Foreign Ministry Deputy Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

“We regard the latest events as a serious violation of the ceasefire and the declared intentions to achieve a political settlement,” she said, adding that further escalation would be unacceptable.

Four Azerbaijani army servicemen were killed in overnight clashes, the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry said, adding that Armenians had also sustained casualties but did not elaborate.

Defence Ministry spokesperson Vagif Dargyakhly denied media reports alleging that the Azerbaijani army was using guided missile systems against Armenian troops.

“Units of the country’s Armed Forces are taking adequate measures in response to ceasefire violations by the Armenian side. But they are using only large caliber firearms,” he said.

He confirmed that 12 Azerbaijani troops had been killed in the conflict area over the past four days and several had been wounded, but did not specify.

The spokesperson said the current situation in the region was relatively calm.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in July that his country was using political and economic factors to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict peacefully.

He stressed that Azerbaijan could solve the problem by force, but “we think the potential of negotiations has not been used up yet”.

“Using political, economic and military pressure we will try to get the issue solved peacefully. Our economic, political and military potential is quite strong and this factor will play a positive role at the talks,” the president said, adding that the conflict could not remain frozen.

Aliyev regretted the absence of progress in the resolution of the conflict despite the international mediators’ efforts. “We are of the opinion that the mediators dealing with this [Karabakh] issue are more interested in keeping the situation in its present state. Their main interest is in preserving stability and preventing a war in the region. We also want peace. But at the same time we want to see truth and justice restored and international law triumphing,” he said.

The president also believes that the conflict should be settled “cardinally”. “Half-solutions can only be an interim step. We should not forget the main goal. The people of Azerbaijan should return to the occupied territories,” he said.

He stressed that Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians could get a high status of autonomy within Azerbaijan. “We proposed this and this approach is based on the most positive experience the world and Europe have,” he added.

The Armenian president’s spokesperson Arman Sagatelyan said on Saturday that the conflict could not be resolved by force.

“Armenia is convinced that there can be no military solution to the Karabakh conflict,” he said. “The truce agreement signed in 1994 clearly states the parties’ legal obligations that must be respected. The Nagorno-Karabakh problem can only be resolved through peace negotiation,” Sagatelyan said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began on February 22, 1988. On November 29, 1989 direct rule in Nagorno-Karabakh was ended and Azerbaijan regained control of the region. However later a joint session of the Armenian parliament and the top legislative body of Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.

On December 10, 1991, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh held a referendum, boycotted by local Azeris, which approved the creation of an independent state.

The struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated after both Armenia and Azerbaijan obtained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. By the end of 1993, the conflict had caused thousands of casualties and created hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides. An unofficial ceasefire was reached on May 12, 1994.

As of August, 2008, the co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group were attempting to negotiate a full settlement of the conflict. On August 2, 2008, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan travelled to Moscow for talks with Dmitry Medvedev, who was Russian president at the time. As a result, the three presidents signed an agreement that calls for talks on a political settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Five soldiers killed in Nagorny-Karabakh clash

At least five soldiers have been killed in fresh clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed Nagorny-Karabakh region.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its troopers tried to repel an overnight attack by ethnic Armenian forces, adding that four soldiers were killed in the clash.

One Armenian soldier was also killed, authorities in Nagorny-Karabakh said.

Baku had said on Friday that eight Azeri soldiers had been killed in three days of fighting in the area.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over the disputed territory with occasional clashes along the ceasefire line. Nagorno-Karabakh is largely populated by Armenians but located in Azerbaijan.

Ethnic Armenian forces took control of the enclave, which accounts for 16 percent of Azerbaijan, in the early 1990s during a six-year war that lasted from February 1988 to May 1994.

The conflict left an estimated 30,000 people dead and one million others displaced before the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in 1994. However, a peace accord has never been signed and the dispute still remains unsettled.

Later on Saturday, Armenia said President Serzh Sarkisian will discuss the crisis with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev in a meeting in the Russian city of Sochi next week.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry expressed concern over the recent fighting, which it called a “serious violation of a ceasefire agreement.”

On Friday, the US called on the leaders of the two countries to hold talks. “Retaliation and further violence will only make it more difficult to bring about a peaceful settlement,” deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

Armenia accuses Azerbaijan of violation of ceasefire pact

YEREVAN, August 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of violation of a ceasefire regime, the Armenian defense ministry said Tuesday.

"On Monday night and Tuesday morning the Azeri side has once again violated a ceasefire regime in different sections of the state border with Armenia," the Armenian defense ministry said, adding that large-scale caliber guns alongside with the ordinary guns had been used in the incident. No casualties on the Armenian side have been reported.

"The Armenian armed forces have ensured reliable control of the situation all along the state border with Azerbaijan and strictly observe the terms of the ceasefire agreement", the Armenian defense ministry said.

"But, the Armenian side has to use measure adequate to the situation only if the adversary opens targeted fire," it said.

CSTO Chief Visits Armenia-Azerbaijan Front Line, Gets Earful From Sargsyan

The head of Russia's post-Soviet military bloc has made his first-ever visit to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, checking on the readiness of Armenian troops there. The show of support was made just before Armenia was scheduled to sign an agreement to become a member of Russia's other big Eurasian integration project, the Eurasian Union.

But Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan took the occasion of the visit to criticize the bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, for failing to consistently support Armenia's interests in its conflict with Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh, which Armenian forces control but which de jure belongs to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's government has repeatedly threatened to take back the territory by force, and Armenia's alliance with Russia and the CSTO is its strongest security guarantee.

"The president underscored that the positions of a number of CSTO partners on issues being of paramount importance to allies, particularly on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, expressed in different international platforms, do not correspond to the common spirit of the negotiation process, contradict the statements and proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group, as well as to the documents endorsed within the framework of the CSTO," Sargsyan's office said in a statement. "[Azerbaijan President] Ilham Aliyev’s bellicose and Armenophobic statements do not rouse a keen response among our CSTO partners which could have suppressed the adventurous desires of the Azeri leadership."

Sargsyan appeared to be referring to statements made by other CSTO members like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in Turkic and Islamic fora supporting Azerbaijan's position on Karabakh. This is not the first time he has complained about this, but tying the complaints to Bordyuzha's visit was unusual and suggested that Yerevan was trying to elevate the issue.

Sargsyan's complaints may have been intended for a domestic audience as well, said Emil Sanamyan, editor of the newspaper Armenian Reporter. "My sense of this is that Russia is delaying certain weapons transfers to Armenia until the Eurasian Union is finalized," Sanamyan said in an email interview with The Bug Pit. "Since there is no real guarantee that delays wont continue post-membership, Sargsyan has become more vocal in his criticisms of arms sales to Azerbaijan and lack of CSTO reaction to violations on Armenia-Azerbaijan border." Public criticism during Bordyuzha's visit "keeps the issue on the agenda and protects Sargsyan domestically," he added.

Bordyuzha said the goal of his visit to the Azerbaijan border was to "prepare a report about the operational environment" there. Bordyuzha's visit was connected to "the growing tensions at the borders of the CSTO member states in the recent period, including the drastic aggravation of the situation along the Armenian-Azeri and the Nagorno-Karabakh-Azeri line of contact in August this year," Sargsyan's office's statement said. "Unfortunately, Azeri provocative actions in every possible way pose a threat to the fragile security system of the area under the CSTO responsibility."

Does all this portend a more active CSTO involvement in Karabakh? Is that connected with Yerevan's signing of the Eurasian Union agreement? Stay tuned.

Karabakh Military Helicopter Shot Down by Azerbaijan Forces

MOSCOW, November 12 (RIA Novosti) — The press service of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense stated that it was “a Mi-24 helicopter belonging to the Republic of Armenia’s armed forces,” and that it “made an attempt to attack Azerbaijani positions.” According to a statement issued by the ministry, the helicopter was shot down in the vicinity of the village of Chemengly in the Agdam district of Azerbaijan, and crashed in territory controlled by Azerbaijani forces. Azerbaijani forces were deployed to secure the crash site.

Lt. Col. Senor Asratyan, press secretary of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), told RIA Novosti that it was an NKR military helicopter that was conducting a training flight. “At about 13.45 local time Wednesday, in an act that violated a standing ceasefire, a NKR Air Forces Mi-24 that was conducting a training flight was shot down by the Azerbaijani side in the airspace over the eastern direction of the Karabakh-Azerbaijani contact line,” Asratyan said.

According to Asratyan, the crash site is located close to the demarcation line, and Azerbaijani troops are continuing to subject the area to “intensive small arms fire.”

The Karabakh conflict started in February 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, declared its secession from the Azerbaijan SSR. In September 1991, the creation of the NKR was proclaimed in the city of Stepanakert. The government of Azerbaijan declared this move illegal and abolished the autonomous status of Nagorno-Karabakh. The armed conflict that followed was stopped by a ceasefire agreement on May 12, 1994. As a result, Azerbaijan lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh and – either fully or partially – of the seven districts adjacent to it.

Negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the US, Russia and France, are being conducted to achieve a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Azerbaijan insists on maintaining its territorial integrity and NKR’s interests are being represented by Armenia, as the self-proclaimed republic is not recognized as a state.