Armenia suffers losses in another diversion

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

A new diversion attempt by the Armenian militaries was prevented on the contact line of the troops on February 7.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry announced that the Armenian armed forces were shooting at the positions of the Azerbaijani army from different directions along the line of contact by using mortars, large-caliber machine guns beginning from 16:55 (GMT+4) February 7, the ministry said.

The Armenian armed forces tried to use the ceasefire as distraction, while carrying out a diversion in the other direction in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.

“However, the Azerbaijani army detected Armenia’s actions in advance and retaliated. The Armenian side had to retreat, suffering losses,” the ministry said, emphasizing that the Azerbaijani armed forces suffered no losses

The situation along the line of contact is fully controlled, according to the ministry.

Overall, the Armenian armed units shattered ceasefire with Azerbaijan a total of 39 times throughout the day using 60- 82 mm mortar launchers, large-caliber machine guns and 122-mm howitzers.

Last days of 2016 also saw the Armenian provocation on the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border.  Then, the enemy group found itself in the ambush of the Azerbaijani army while attempting to cross the borders and retreated suffering losses.  Unfortunately, Azerbaijani soldier Chingiz Gurbanov was murdered while preventing the enemy provocation.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, led by Russia, the United States and France. However, it brought no convincing results so far.

The Armenian side constantly violates truce and targets Azerbaijani soldiers and even civilians ever since the ceasefire agreement was reached between the parties to the conflict.

The occupant country still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.