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Karabakh's Azerbaijani community slams another Armenian provocation

17 August 2020 17:37 (UTC+04:00)
Karabakh's Azerbaijani community slams another Armenian provocation

By Akbar Mammadov

Nagorno-Karabakh’s Azerbaijani Community has described as another provocation the intention of the so-called "regime" created in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, to relocate its headquarters from Khankendi to Shusha.

“Shusha is a city of great historical and spiritual significance for Azerbaijan, and on the eve of the 270th anniversary of its foundation, we condemn another provocative attempt by Armenia,” the Community said in its statement.

“We have repeatedly witnessed such provocations,” the community stressed, adding that one of such provocations was the distortion of the architecture of the Yukhari Govhar Aga Mosque of Shusha as the “Iranian mosque” and the distortion of the Russian Church as the "Armenian Church".

“In addition, the Armenian leadership organized a so-called "inauguration" show in Shusha a few months ago,” the community reminded.

The community emphasized that such regular steps serve nothing but hinder the settlement of the conflict and should be strongly condemned by the international community.

“Such provocative and perverse actions of Armenia will never break our determination to return to our ancestral lands… The Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been subjected to ethnic cleansing, will return to our lands and form institutions that embody the sovereignty of Azerbaijan," the statement concludes.

Recently, Armenian armed forces committed the military provocation, firing artillery at Azerbaijan's positions in the direction of Tovuz district of the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border. As a result of the military provocation, the Azerbaijani army lost 12 servicemen as a result of Armenian attacks. One civilian was killed as a result of artillery fire by the Armenian armed forces.

It should be noted the occupation of Shusha region was one of the most painful losses of Azerbaijan in the Karabakh war because of the fact that Shusha was the capital city of the historical Karabakh khanate of Azerbaijan, which was occupied as a result of heavy fire from rockets, artillery, tanks and other weapons by Armenian armed forces on the night of May 7-8, 1992.

During the defence of the city, 195 civilians were killed and 165 were injured. 114 Azerbaijanis captured by Armenians and detained in Shusha prison were later killed with special cruelty, 58 residents of the city are missing. Before Shusha was occupied, about 25,000 people lived there, of which more than 24,000 people of Shusha have been become internally displaced persons and settled in 58 regions of Azerbaijan.

As a result of the occupation, Armenian armed forces destroyed and looted many valuable historical and cultural monuments in Shusha. This includes a total of 279 religious, historical and cultural monuments, including the famous Shusha fortress, the Khan Cave, the Gakhal Cave, more than 170 residential buildings, temples and mosques, which are considered architectural monuments.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Group’s efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

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