Armenian Army Breaches Cease-Fire Agreement
Baku Today
June 11 2004
Armenian troops located in Armenia’s Verd District violated the
cease-fire agreement on Thursday by firing at Azerbaijan’s army
positions in western Tovuz District, the press office of Azerbaijan’s
ministry of defense said, according to ANS.
In another case of a breach of the cease-fire agreement, Armenian
troops occupying Azerbaijan’s Khocavend District in Nagorno-Karabakh
early Friday fired at Azeri positions.
Reports on the Armenians’ violating the 1994 armistice said the
latter on Monday shot an Azerbaijani battalion commander to death
and wounded a soldier in Jojug Merjanli village of the southwestern
Jebrail District.
Jojug Merjanli is the only village in Jabrail District that is
controlled by Azerbaijani army. The rest of the district was captured
by Armenians in 1993.
Azerbaijan’s news reports said the killed officer, Captain Zaur
Ismailov, 28, was shot by an Armenian sniper while he was fighting
to take his wounded soldier, Ramil Baghirov, 19, out of the line
of contact.
Nagorno-Karabakh, a former autonomous region within Azerbaijan, and
also seven Azeri administrative districts –Lachin, Kelbajar, Aghdam,
Fuzuli, Jabrail, Zangilan and Gubadli — were captured by Armenian
troops in 1991-94 war with Azerbaijan.
The occupied territories make up for 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s total
area and nearly 700,000 civilian Azeris were forced to leave their
homes as a result of the war.
Despite a shaky cease-fire agreement signed between Baku and Yerevan
in May 1994, no final settlement has been found to the conflict.