Expert: Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani lands cause instability in S.Caucasus

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

The illegal occupation of sovereign territories of Azerbaijan by Armenia and constant violation of international law by Yerevan cause instability in the South Caucasus region.

American political analyst Peter Tase said this in his interview with Report, while commenting on recent attacks of Armenian Armed Forces on the Azerbaijani positions.

The expert mentioned that the Armenian Armed Forces breached the truce hundreds of times in the past few days. Last week, Armenian Armed Forces subjected to intensive fire from mortars of various calibers the Azerbaijani positions and human settlements in the territory of Azerbaijan’s Agdam and Tartar regions.

“Do not forget that Armenian Armed Forces are, in fact, the only ones in Eurasia that continue to commit atrocities not only against civilians, but also against cultural monuments, destroying more than 1,600 monuments,” he said.

Tase went on to say that the Armenian government continues to blackmail the international community and provide its army with missiles of 60 and 82 mm caliber for mortars, using which it shells Azerbaijani villages.

The expert is sure that the OSCE Minsk Group should put pressure on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to force him to adhere to the peace process and the outcome of negotiations in St. Petersburg and Vienna.

“The current ceasefire is not a lasting solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and will never bring peace and stability to the region,” Tase noted.

“This requires that the Armenian armed forces leave all the occupied Azerbaijani territories,” he said, adding that Armenia must stop its ambitions of territorial expansion and end the blockade of Nakhchivan.

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.

Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. within the OSCE Minsk Group have produced no results so far.