Foreign military attaches, foreign media reps visit Alkhanli village [UPDATE]

By Rashid Shirinov

The Azerbaijani Foreign and Defense Ministries, General Prosecutor’s Office and Fuzuli Region Executive Power organized a visit of foreign military attaches accredited to Azerbaijan and representatives of foreign media to the village of Alkhanli of Fuzuli region.

The Alkhanli village underwent intense firing of the Armenian armed forces on July 4. As a result of this provocation, a resident of the village and her two-year-old granddaughter were killed. Another resident, Sarvinaz Guliyeva, who got wounded, was taken to the hospital and was operated on.

During the visit, military attaches and representatives of foreign media visited Sarvinaz Guliyeva. Then, they went to the graves of the killed Azerbaijani civilians Sahiba Guliyeva and her granddaughter Zahra Guliyeva.

They also examined the area in Alkhanli village shelled by the Armenian armed forces.

Chief Executive of Fizuli region Ali Aliyev noted that the Armenian armed units shell the village every day. He mentioned that 900 people were killed during the ceasefire period, but the OSCE and international structures are indifferent to that.

"For 25 years, Armenians shell the frontline areas daily. International organizations and the leading states of the world are cold-bloodedly about this," he said. "We do not believe any international structure anymore. Military attaches should inform the international community about this.”

Representatives of TRT, Ihlas News Agency, MIR TV, Associated Press, RIA Novosti, Voice of America, Interfax, BBC and other media outlets are among the visitors. Furthermore, military representatives of U.S., Russia, Pakistan, China, Korea, Turkey, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Belarus and diplomats of German embassy in Azerbaijan attend the visit.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.