The Armed Forces of Azerbaijan found a minefield within the northwestern route of the just lately liberated Saribaba excessive floor, the jap a part of the nation’s Lachin area.
In accordance with the nation’s Protection Ministry, the anti-personnel minefield was detected because of the terrain reconnaissance performed by engineering models of the Azerbaijan Army on Monday.
“On August 15, inside sooner or later, a complete of 991 [pieces of] PMN-E sort anti-personnel mines had been faraway from the mined space, transported, and disposed of in compliance with security laws,” the ministry mentioned in a assertion.
In the meantime, in accordance with the ministry, the detected mines had been manufactured by Armenia in 2021, nicely after the Second Karabakh Conflict led to 2020. This improvement testifies to the truth that the realm in Saribaba was mined following the signing of a tripartite assertion by Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, which introduced the warfare to an finish. Furthermore, the mined space was throughout the perimeter of the short-term monitoring zone of the Russian peacekeepers in Azerbaijan.
Mine threats had been widespread within the as soon as occupied Azerbaijani territories because the Karabakh (Garabagh) and East Zangazur areas of Azerbaijan had been closely mined by Armenia for the reason that early Nineteen Nineties. Armenia launched a full-blown army assault in opposition to Azerbaijan, which lasted till a ceasefire reached in 1994 and noticed Armenia occupying 20 % of Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized territories.
On September 27, 2020, the battle took a violent flip after Armenia’s forces deployed in occupied Azerbaijani lands shelled army positions and civilian settlements of Azerbaijan. In the course of the counter-attack operations, Azerbaijani forces liberated over 300 settlements, together with the cities of Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Zangilan, Gubadli, and Shusha. The warfare ended with the signing of a tripartite settlement on November 10, 2020, by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, beneath which Armenia additionally returned the occupied Aghdam, Kalbajar, and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan.
Because the finish of the warfare, the Azerbaijani authorities has been conducting intensive demining operations within the liberated territories – a sign that mine threats nonetheless stay within the territories. Officers in Baku are satisfied that the maps hidden by Armenia might assist neutralize no less than a million landmines planted within the as soon as occupied Azerbaijani lands and it’s estimated the demining course of might take 10 to 13 years to finish.
Along with beforehand buried mines, a number of the minefields within the liberated Azerbaijani lands are believed to be laid by unlawful Armenian armed detachments which can be nonetheless deployed there. Some media experiences claimed that the mines just lately present in Saribaba had been planted regardless of the presence of the Russian peacekeepers within the territory and the tripartite settlement that requires the elimination of Armenian armed formations.
The federal government of Azerbaijan has been calling on Armenia’s authorities and the Russian peacekeeping command to utterly withdraw the Armenian armed formations stationed within the Azerbaijani lands. Nonetheless, the calls for of Baku stay unanswered.
The common provocations of the identical unlawful Armenian armed detachments triggered on August 3 an anti-terror operation, codenamed “Operation Vengeance” by the Azerbaijani military. The operation got here in response to the lethal acts carried out by unlawful detachments which killed the Azerbaijani military’s conscript Anar Kazimov on the morning of August 3. The Armenian armed gangs additionally tried to grab the Girkhgiz excessive floor, situated on a mountain vary overlaying the territory of the Kalbajar and Lachin areas, and set up new fight positions there.
As a part of the operation, the Azerbaijani troops destroyed a number of fight positions of Armenian armed detachments and launched an airstrike on a army unit of the unlawful gangs, resulting in the liquidation of a number of D-30 howitzers, army autos and a considerable amount of ammunition.
President Ilham Aliyev known as “Operation Vengeance” a “punitive measure”.
“If an analogous provocation is perpetrated once more, the response would be the similar. Nobody can cease us, and nobody can stand in our approach. We will conduct any operation on our lands at any time,” he mentioned in an interview with state channel AzTV on August 12.
“Armenia should come to phrases with this case, with the brand new actuality sooner or later, as a result of there isn’t a different choice. Operation Vengeance confirmed Armenia once more that nobody and nothing can cease us – not somebody’s assertion, not somebody’s announcement, not some telephone name. Nothing and no person! The individuals of Azerbaijan know this completely nicely. The Second Karabakh Conflict confirmed this. I’m positive that the opposite celebration [Armenia] additionally is aware of this. They merely overlook this typically. This is the reason these tragic occasions occur,” he added.
In the meantime, the illegally settled ethnic Armenians are anticipated to go away the Azerbaijani metropolis of Lachin, the place Russian peacekeepers are stationed, by August 25 beneath circumstances of the tripartite settlement signed on November 10, 2020. Town and a freeway traversing it should return beneath the management of Azerbaijan after the Azerbaijani authorities put into operation an all-new street to interchange the Lachin hall and allow an alternate route between the ethnic Armenian residents of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh area and Armenia. Earlier than leaving Lachin, the unlawful settlers had been seen setting homes and forests on hearth in Lachin in unexpected vandalism and ecological terror.
