Sergey Markov, political analyst, director of the Russian Institute of Political Studies told APA’s Moscow correspondent, while commenting on Armenian armed units’ shelling of Alkhanli village of Fuzuli district as a result of which two persons, including a toddler, were killed and another injured.
According to the expert, if the parties don’t sit at the negotiating table in a short time, a large-scale war in the region will be inevitable. "The possibility of recurrence of April battles is very high. Therefore, the parties should sit down at the negotiating table. The world community should first force Armenia to sit at the negotiating table. Russia and the world community should exert a serious pressure on the Armenian leadership”, he said.
Markov stressed the importance of the world community’s giving assessment to the actions of the Armenian armed forces against civilians: "Killing of a two-year old toddler and this atrocity should receive an appropriate assessment. The Armenians state should be condemned for the annexation. They have occupied the territory of the neighboring country - Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. This occupation must be stopped.”
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.
A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.
The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.
Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCEMinsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in Dec.1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.
Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.
Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.
