APPG and TEAS Director Lionel Zetter condemn revived conflict on Nagorno-Karabakh 'contact line'
London, UK (PRWEB UK) 3 April 2016 -- As the world’s focus has been taken by the long-running war in Syria, it seems that Armenia has taken advantage of this distraction to renew its ambitions to illegally acquire even more Azerbaijani territory, states The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS).
According to TEAS, Armenia already illegally occupies close to 20 per cent of Azerbaijan territory following their initial invasion during the period 1988–94. This illegal act produced close to one million refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, who continue to reside in camps across Azerbaijan.
Ever since that initial invasion, TEAS reports that Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have faced each other across the so-called ‘contact line’. In recent months there have been constant exchanges of small arms fire, and this has been gradually escalating. Now it has reached the point where mortar and artillery round are being exchanged, and it appears as if Armenian forces are renewing the invasion of Azerbaijani territory, picking up where they left off 25 years ago. Attacks have been reported on dozens of Azerbaijani positions along a 100-mile front.
Lionel Zetter, Director, The European Azerbaijan Society said:
“The failure of the OSCE Minsk Group and the UN to resolve this dispute over the last quarter of a century has made a renewal of the conflict almost inevitable. It is a tragedy that, whilst the world is trying to cope with the Syrian conflict, Armenian forces have taken advantage of the distraction to renew their territorial ambitions – just as they did following the chaos of the Soviet collapse. The UN and the international community should not allow them to get away with naked aggression for a second time.”
Bob Blackman MP, Chairman, Azerbaijan All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) at the Westminster Parliament, said:
“Tension has been simmering on the ‘contact line’ for many months. Now it seems that full-scale fighting has broken out. The UN must step in and ensure that the Armenian forces withdraw from Azerbaijani territory as instructed by their own Security Council resolutions numbers 822, 853, 874 and 884.”
Neil Watson, The European Azerbaijan Society, http://www.teas.eu, +44 2078081918, [email protected]
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