Presidential aide: Cluster bomb attacks are new act of genocide against Azerbaijani people

By Azernews

By Aisha Jabbarova

Azerbaijani Presidential Aide Hikmat Hajiyev has said that Armenia’s use of cluster missiles banned by international law by Armenia is the new act of genocide against the Azerbaijani people.

Hajiyev made the remarks on October 28 following Armenia’s Smerch missile attack that killed 19 civilians in Azerbaijan’s Barda city. Around 100 civilians have been killed so far in Armenia’s indiscriminate missile attacks on Azerbaijan’s civilian infrastructure since September 27.

Hajiyev said that by using such missiles Armenia is trying to kill as many civilians as possible.

“Armenia continues this terror at the state level. The criminal order to commit the attack was directly given by Pashinyan. Azerbaijan is far from attacking civilians. We are responding to the Armenians on the battlefield,” the assistant to the president emphasized.

“Today we have witnessed Armenia’s another terror attack. The Armenian Armed Forces again subjected civilians of Barda district to the missile attack. The district center was mainly attacked, there are dead and wounded. This is an attack against the civilized world,” Hajiyev tweeted.

Hajiyev also said that “Armenians won't be able to weaken us, neither break our will by making such attacks. On the contrary, we are becoming stronger from this," Hajiyev said.

Menwhile, Hajiyev invited Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International organizations to conduct on site assessment of such crimes of Armenia, in a twitter post.

Barda also came under Amrnia's missile attack on October 27. Five civiians, including a seven-years-old girl, were killed and ten otheres were injured in the attack.

The attack on Barda comes after the US-mediated humanitarian truce that became effective on October 26 at 8 a.m. Armenia earlier breached two Russia-brokered truce agreements hours after they became effective on October 10 and 17.

Armenian armed forces launched a large-scale operation in the front-line zone on September 27 at 6 am, shelling the positions of the Azerbaijani army from large-calibre weapons, mortars, and artillery installations of various calibres. Armenia has been targeting Azerbaijan’s densely populated areas and infrastructure projects.