For the first time since the beginning of ceasefire, Azerbaijan used heavy 120-mm-diameter artillery, “which shows Baku’s intention to continue escalation of tension by military clashes,” said Armenian Ambassador to the OSCE Arman Kirakosyan while speaking at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council.
As EAD was told at the Armenian foreign ministry press office, Kirakosyan said that thus Azerbaijan is trying to undermine the trilateral ceasefire agreement from 1994 and upset the military balance. The ambassador called OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to pay their attention to the threatening development.
The ambassador expressed regret that on the day when the international community marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Azerbaijan’s leadership is calling for xenophobia and intolerance. He also spoke of the March 19 raid of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces in the northern section of the Nagorno-Karabakh contact line, when four soldiers of the Karabakh Defense Army were killed. He stressed that reciprocal actions of the Karabakh army Azerbaijani forces suffered severe losses which Baku is trying to conceal by imposing official ban on journalists’ visits to the border settlements.
He mentioned that in the Nagorno-Karabakh territories controlled by Azerbaijan ethnic purges took place. In this context, Kirakosyan stated that Azerbaijan was trying to renew the military conflict in order to suppress by force the right of Nagorno-Karabakh people for self-determination.
Condemning the policy of Azerbaijan, the ambassador stressed that Azerbaijan was responsible for escalation of the situation.