The press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Anna Naghdalyan called the statement of the EU foreign policy service condemning the shelling of the Azerbaijani city of Ganja unilateral and reprehensible.
Recently, European Union’s foreign policy service has said that the EU “condemns the attacks on the Azerbaijani city of Ganja on the night of October 16-17, which resulted in the death of civilians and serious injuries”. The European Union said that “all attacks on civilians and civilian objects of either side must stop”. The Armenian Defense Ministry denied the involvement of the Armenian Armed Forces in the incident.
“Armenia considers this unilateral and biased statement, which gives Azerbaijan the green light to continue unpunished violations of international law, including international humanitarian and customary international law, reprehensible”, – Naghdalyan said in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry website.
According to her, Azerbaijan “has been subjecting the cities and villages of Artsakh to barbaric rocket attacks for three weeks (the self-name of Karabakh – ed.), including the capital Stepanakert, deliberately striking the civilian population and civilian infrastructure, which leads to dozens of civilian casualties and forces people leave their homeland”. Naghdalyan stated that Azerbaijan also caused damage to the civilian population and infrastructure on the territory of Armenia.
“The current large-scale aggression was preceded by Azerbaijani provocative propaganda campaigns on disinformation, one of them was “about an Armenian missile targeting the city of Ganja”, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, adding that for decades, Azerbaijan has instilled hatred and Armenophobia in its society”.
According to the spokesman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry, “speaking with baseless accusations, Azerbaijan refuses to comply with the ceasefire agreements concluded with the mediation of the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries, categorically denying any possibility of using verification mechanisms to continue the war”.
“So far the EU was able to clearly and unequivocally respond to these war crimes committed by Azerbaijan with the direct participation of Turkey, including through the transfer of foreign militants from Syria to Libya”, – Naghdalyan said.
The fighting on the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh began on 27 September. Armenia and Azerbaijan accuse each other of unleashing hostilities, in Karabakh they report shelling of peaceful settlements of the unrecognized republic, including its capital, Stepanakert. Armenia has declared martial law and – for the first time – general mobilization, claiming that Ankara is actively supporting Baku. Partial mobilization was introduced in Azerbaijan and in some places – martial law. The leaders of Russia, the United States and France called on the opposing sides to stop clashes and to undertake to start negotiations without preconditions.
On October 9, the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia arrived in Moscow at the invitation of the President of the Russian Federation, together with their Russian counterpart they held talks for more than 10 hours. As a result, Yerevan and Baku agreed to cease fire in Karabakh from noon on October 10, to exchange prisoners and bodies of the dead, and also to additionally agree on specific details of the truce. However, on the same day, the parties began to accuse each other of violations of the ceasefire. The second attempt to organize a humanitarian ceasefire was made on the night of October 17-18, but just a few hours after the ceasefire came into force, Armenia and Azerbaijan declared that the other side had not complied with it.
The conflict in Karabakh began in 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR. In the course of the armed confrontation in 1992-1994, Azerbaijan lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. Since 1992, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the conflict have been conducted within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, headed by three co-chairs – Russia, the United States and France. Azerbaijan insists on preserving its territorial integrity, Armenia protects the interests of the unrecognized republic, since NKR is not a party to the negotiations.