Given the current situation, the Ministry of Defense of the NKR advises the Azerbaijani army to respect the arrangement on ceasing the fire reached between the parties on the latter’s request and warns against turning the peaceful settlements into firing positions and making them legitimate military targets. Otherwise, the Azerbaijan’s military-political command will bear the whole responsibility for the consequences.
As reported earlier, throughout last night the adversary used almost every artillery and armored equipment of its arsenal. In addition to targeting military positions, Azerbaijan shelled Martakert and Mataghis civilian settlements.
From the very first moments of wide-scale attack by the adversary along the entire Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact, the Union of Artsakh Freedom Fighters directed its whole potential towards strengthening of the defense system of the Republic and security provision.
On April 2, 2016, Defense Army of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic downed an Azerbaijani Air Force Mi-24G attack helicopter, which was carrying out a sortie during the military aggression of Azerbaijan against the NKR. The following has been collected from the crash site of the downed helicopter.
Nagorno Karabakh Republic (Artsakh Republic) Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) has published a report on atrocities committed by Azerbaijani Armed Forces against the civilian population of the NKR and the servicemen of the NKR Defense Army during the period of 2-5April 2016. As 168.am was informed from the press service of NKR Ombudsman, the announcement reads as follows,,
It’s noteworthy, that Lavrov himself has repeatedly denied existence of such a document. This was also denied by Igor Popov, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair (Russia), stating no Russian plans are available at the negotiation table, moreover, he added, “There are proposals by the Co-chairs, which have been discussed throughout recent years in this or that form. A few variants are available, however, they’re based on three principles and six elements of the conflict settlement, which have repeatedly been stated by the Co-chairs. Let me remind about these principles: the right to self-determination, exclusion of the use of force, territorial integrity, and most important among the six basic elements are the return of the territories and the status settlement of NKR.
“Russia’s mediation efforts aren’t so convincing to me under current state of affairs, Russia’s role is very contrastive, as Russia has a military base in Armenia, and is considered Armenia’s main partner in the field of security, Armenia is a CSTO member, Russia is Armenia’s security guarantor, however, it sells arms to Azerbaijan. Although Russia’s officials are also able to ground it, it may be considered as a conflict participant, who openly supports Azerbaijani president’s steps, whatever they might be,” Uwe Halbach said.
Meeting of the Board of Trustees of “Tashir” Charity Foundation was held recently, during which decision was made to allocate USD 500.000 to Artsakh, as well as USD 2000 for each family of soldier or serviceman killed for the defense of Artsakh borders in early April of 2016.
In the latter’s conviction, NK conflict should have been settled long ago, if mediators had frank desire and really supported the sides in conflict settlement, and Russia, in his conviction, isn’t such a party, as it does its best for non-settlement of the conflict. In this situation, in his conviction, the sides have just to demonstrate flexibility and quickly settle the conflict, otherwise, it’ll go on the path not shaped by them, which may have a tragic ending for the whole region. Tsintsadze said, that Georgia is ready to be a mediator in Armenia-Azerbaijan bilateral negotiations, which, maybe will pass a new impetus to the negotiations.
Viktor Kocharyan, Head of the NKR State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and the Missing, rejects the information released by the Azerbaijani media that the Armenian side refuses to hand over the body of the Azerbaijani killed serviceman. In an interview with “Armenpress’ Viktor Kocharyan said that there is no body of the Azerbaijani serviceman in the Armenian side. “There is no such a thing. There are no bodies in the Armenian side,” Kocharyan assured.
