Press Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh-Republic (NKR), Ani Sargsyan, spoke to Armenian News-NEWS.am and commented on the most recent escalation of the situation on the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Below is the text of this interview.
On Friday, four soldiers of the Defense Army of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic were killed as a result of rocket and artillery fire from the Azerbaijani side. The day before, three civilians were killed from Azerbaijani fire in Tavush Province of Armenia. How would you comment on such actions of Azerbaijan?
It is regrettable that Azerbaijan undertakes such actions at a time when the OSCE Minsk Group mediators are holding meetings with foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the sidelines of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly aimed at the de-escalation of the situation.
Rejecting the mechanisms for investigating incidents on the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan thus creates and uses a situation in which the mediators are unable to determine the true culprit escalating tension, and deliberately narrows the space for the resolution of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict by peaceful means.
We call on the international community to exert effective methods to bring the Azerbaijani authorities to sobriety and take steps towards eradicating the causes of the escalation of the situation, instead of making appeals aimed at eliminating the consequences.
As reported earlier, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces shelled at one of the northeastern protection areas of the NKR Defense Army unit on Friday at about 5:30pm. The fire was opened from Turkish-made reactive rocket propelled howitzers (TR-107).
Consequently, NKR Defense Army soldiers Norayr Khachatryan (born in 1995), Robert Mkrtchyan (born in 1995), Harut Hakobyan (born in 1997), and Karen Shahinyan (born in 1997) died from shrapnel wounds.
On Thursday, three civilians were killed as a result of Azerbaijani shelling at the border villages of Armenia’s Tavush Province.
