Azerbaijan launches operation in Karabakh to drive out Armenian military formations

BAKU – Azerbaijan has launched an “anti-terrorist” operation in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh to drive out the formations of the Armenian armed forces.

The Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defence in a statement said that the Armenian armed forces in the territory of Azerbaijan, where the Russian peacekeeping contingent is temporarily deployed, using various caliber weapons are subjecting to intensive fire the Azerbaijan Army’s positions stationed in the direction of the Aghdam region.

The ministry also clarified that the civilian population and civilian infrastructure facilities are not targeted during the anti-terrorist activities conducted by the Azerbaijan in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

“Only legitimate military targets are being incapacitated by the use of high-precision weapons available in the armament of the Azerbaijan Army,” read the statement.

Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian forces occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

In 2020, Azerbaijan managed to liberate several cities, villages, and settlements from Armenian occupation during 44-day-long clashes. The war came to an end after Russia brokered a cease-fire agreement between both sides.

The Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said, “On September 19, a vehicle belonging to Azerbaijan State Agency for Automobile Roads exploded hitting a land mine previously planted by the reconnaissance-subversion groups of Armenia’s armed forces in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, with the purposes of committing terror act, on the Ahmadbayli-Fuzuli-Shusha Road that killed two civilians”. 

The same day, the explosion of vehicle carrying the military personnel of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the mine, installed by the reconnaissance-subversion groups of Armenia’s armed forces led to fatalities and injuries among our military servicemen. Such facts are the testimony to the ongoing deliberate and planned policy of terror by Armenia against Azerbaijan, it said.      

The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated that contrary to the provisions of the Trilateral Statement signed on 10 November 2020, the continued presence of Armenia’s armed forces formations in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan is the source of grave threat to regional peace and stability.      

Therefore, local anti-terrorist activities have been launched to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement, suppress large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of Armenia’s armed forces from our territories, neutralize their military infrastructure, provide the safety of the civilian population returned to the territories liberated from occupation, the civilians involved in construction and restoration work and our military personnel, and ultimately restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan.