OSCE WARNS AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA AGAINST FREQUENT VIOLATION OF CEASEFIRE
Trend News Agency
Feb 14 2008
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan, Barda, 14 February / Trend News corr Sh. Jaliloglu
/ Andrzej Kasprzyk, the OSCE Chairman-in-office’s personal
representative, said that in the recent months, the ceasefire between
Azerbaijan and Armenia has been more frequently broken. "Due to
the permanent violation of ceasefire at the contact line of the
Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, both the sides have been warned,"
he said to journalists on 14 February after the monitoring held at the
troop contact line nearby the Tapgaragoyunlu village in the Goranboy
region of Azerbaijan.
The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began
in 1988, due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan lost the Nagorno-Karabakh, except of Shusha and Khojaly, in
December 1991. In 1992-93, the Armenian Armed Forces occupied Shusha,
Khojaly and Nagorno-Karabakh’s seven neighbouring regions. In 1994,
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement which ended the
active hostilities. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia,
France, and the US) are currently holding the peaceful, but fruitless
negotiations. OSCE periodically monitors the troop contact line.
The OSCE will increase the number of the monitoring exercises in order
to prevent the intensive violation of the ceasefire. The violation of
the ceasefire negatively affects the day-to-day life of the nearby
villages’ residents and impedes their agricultural activities,
Kasprzyk said.
Azerbaijan has been always maintaining the ceasefire, the Spokesman
for the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry Eldar Sabiroglu said to Trend
on 14 February. " Azerbaijan has been urging OSCE to take necessary
measures against Armenia, which has been intensively violating the
ceasefire," he said.