Karabakh foreign ministry urges international community not to react to Baku’s provocations by issuing addressless calls

STEPANAKERT, February 28. /ARKA/. Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Tuesday urging the international community to stop issuing addressless calls to the sides of the Karabakh conflict in response to Azerbaijan’s provocative policy and instead to intensify efforts to put the arrangements made in Vienna and St. Petersburg into practice.    

The defense ministry of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic reported Saturday morning that Azerbaijani troops have raided Karabakh positions that night on the line of contact between Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forces. 

According to the defense ministry’s news release, several Azerbaijani servicemen were killed in return opened by the Karabakh side. No killed or wounded soldiers on the Karabakh side were reported. 

In its statement, the foreign ministry says that this raid came after systematic escalation of tension by the Azerbaijani side, to which the mediators reacted by issuing adressless calls for restraint.   

Earlier, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs released a statement calling the Karabakh conflict sides to refrain from using force. 

”The ministry says that the February 25 incident is another piece of evidence of complete negligence by the Azerbaijani side of the commitments it has assumed in 1994 and 1995 agreements and the Vienna and St. Petersburg arrangements. 

“It is obvious that by increasing tension on the contact line the Azerbaijani side is trying to test not only the Artsakh Defense Army’s fighting capacity, but also the reaction of the international community to the use of force,” the foreign ministry says. 

The ministry stressed that it was the lack of the tough and targeted reaction from the international community that created a situation, which was used by Baku for launching assaults against Artsakh.  

”The escalation of tension on the contact line, triggered by the Azerbaijani side, is deepening mistrust and is moving prospects for final settlement of the conflict away,” the Nagorno-Karabakh foreign ministry says in its statement. 

Karabakh conflict broke out in 1988 when Karabakh, mainly populated by Armenians, declared its independence from Azerbaijan.

On December 10, 1991, a few days after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a referendum took place in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the majority of the population (99.89%) voted for secession from Azerbaijan. 
Afterwards, large-scale military operations began. As a result, Azerbaijan lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven regions adjacent to it.

Some 30,000 people were killed in this war and about one million people fled their homes.  

On May 12, 1994, the Bishkek cease-fire agreement put an end to the military operations.
Тalks brokered by OSCE Minsk Group are being held over peaceful settlement of the conflict. The group is co-chaired by USA, Russia and France. --0-----