Notes have been taken in the notebook of one of the pilots, made on March 31, “Black box is yellow. It’s written: the pilot should fly the helicopter from Kala airport of Baku to military airbase of Kurdistan. It’s written that he performed 2 flights: 6 and 11 minutes each, totally 148 liters of kerosene have been consumed.
The Armenian community in Jerusalem today protested Israel’s sale of weapons to Azerbaijan, which are reportedly being used against Armenians in the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region, albawaba.com reports.
The alliance between the two countries has a firm basis in geopolitical realpolitik. Azerbaijan takes special care to maintain its status as a secular state, while its two large neighbors, Turkey and Iran, are best characterized as Islamist regimes with imperial ambitions. Iran especially has a hard time coming to terms with the fact that a country on its border, particularly one with a majority Shiite population, maintains a modern Western, secular lifestyle. Azerbaijan also takes care to uphold a cautious policy of neutrality toward the two regional powerbrokers, Turkey and Russia, even while Ankara and Moscow are engaged in a heated diplomatic, near military, conflict.
“Don’t speak.” Should be told to those, who in reply to DIRECT questions on arms sales to Azerbaijan by Russia, arms, which killed Armenian soldiers and children, start talking profusely and protect Russian interest within the boundaries of their thought and language flexibility.
Particularly, touching upon accusations on Russia by Armenian and Azerbaijani circles, that Russia blocks final settlement of the conflict, Lukyanov stated he agreed, that both in Yerevan and Baku, the role of Moscow in conflict settlement is being much touched upon, that the settlement key is in Moscow, that unsettled conflict is beneficial to the Kremlin, as it provides influence levers towards the whole South Caucasus. According to him, such a stage was really existent.
Political aspects of the causes of the start of the April war will be discussed for a long time: many geopolitical, economic and other reasons will be propounded, but the fact is that Azerbaijan has calculated several things. Over the past years Azerbaijan has purchased a large number of new types of weapons and had confidence that this modern weaponry would provide an inevitable victory. At the same time they knew that the Armenian side started major acquisitions, the huge part of which is still underway. If we add the fact that the spending of the Azerbaijani armed forces have been drastically reduced, then it can be assumed that this was the right time for them to try make a “blitzkrieg”.
“The Azerbaijani army simultaneously operated 50 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Through airborne prospecting they attempted to damage the reserve and destroy control system. Of course, they failed. We implemented command without failures and problems. Through connection we provided uninterrupted command, which is the most crucial in this situation. In the southeastern direction the adversary took an object and failed to exercise its combat mission.”
A criminal case was initiated in General Military Investigative Department on violation of the norms of international humanitarian law provided by international treaties during armed conflicts according to the Part 6 of the Article 390 of Republic of Armenia Criminal Code.
“This is an old problem, a long-standing conflict. Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of violence. A compromise should be found. I thought we were close to it a few years ago, but things turned out to be different.”
With so many conflicts in the world, Nagorno-Karabakh gets little attention. The bloody fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the mountainous enclave this week was a reminder that it should. Tanks and artillery traded fire; at least 50 people were killed in four days. The spectre loomed of a wider war, one that could draw in Russia, Turkey and Iran. A ceasefire brokered in Moscow on April 5th appears to be holding for now. But it brought the two foes no closer to peace.
