Baku’s provocations must be condemned by international community

“It’s time for the international community to condemn appropriately the provocative actions of Azerbaijan which aims to disrupt the talks on settlement to the Karabakh conflict and to collapse of the mediation efforts,” said Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharian, commenting the increasing number of diversionary attacks by Azerbaijani soldiers on Nagorno Karabakh.

He said that “the provocations organised by Azerbaijan’s authorities on the line of contact [between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh] became a tradition.” According to Kocharian, these actions have an aim to disrupt mediators’ efforts who work for strengthening of the case-fire regime, withdrawal of snipers from the front positions and reaching the progress in talks.

“This time the Azerbaijani side attempted a diversionary attack [on Nagorno Karabakh] a few hours after President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia which is a member-state of the OSCE Minsk Group called in Baku to solve the Karabakh conflict by peaceful meanings only. Azerbaijan’s authorities again showed their face, being unable to resist the temptation to attempt a provocation at the expense of its own citizens’ lives,” said Kocharian.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported that early on September 4, an armed group of Azerbaijani diversionists crossed the line of contact with Nagorno Karabakh and attempted an invasion. In result, one Azerbaijani attacker was killed, four others were wounded.