Karabakh Dismisses Azeri Accusations of Alleged Use of Prohibited Ammunition

STEPANAKERT (Armradio) — The Foreign Ministry of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic issued the following statement today:

On May 17, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry voiced another farfetched accusation of the alleged use of prohibited ammunition, including shells with white phosphorus, during the military operations on April 2-5, 2016.

Continuing its usual campaign of disinformation of the international community, Azerbaijan does not disdain resorting to fraud and outright manipulation. To add weight to its propaganda, the Azerbaijani side tries to involve foreign diplomats and military attaches accredited in Azerbaijan.

Falsification and distortion of the reality have long become regular, constituting an integral part of Azerbaijan’s foreign policy. Back in 1992, the Azerbaijani side made similar accusations of the alleged use of chemical weapons, which were then denied by the UN special fact-finding mission. Based on the findings and conclusions of the UN experts set forth in the UN Security Council document S/24344 dated July 24, 1992, the UN Secretary-General noted that “no evidence of the use of chemical weapons had been presented to the team”.

In subsequent years, the Azerbaijani side has been making similar absurd and unconfirmed accusations of the use of nuclear weapons against Azerbaijan in 1993 and disposal of nuclear wastes in the NKR (PACE document N 9444 dated May 7, 2002), transformation of Armenia and the NKR to a depot of bacteriological weapons (PACE document N9336 dated January 31, 2002), cultivation and production of drugs, etc. In doing so, the Azerbaijani side referred to nonexistent scientific journals, reports, organizations, and laboratories.

Resurrecting its old allegations, Azerbaijan does not only try to justify its policy of use of force and denial of full and strict compliance with the ceasefire agreements of 1994 and 1995, on which the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairing countries insist, but also aims to distract the attention from the real war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani army against the military servicemen and civilian population of the NKR.

In this regard, we call on the international community to treat the unfounded statements of the Azerbaijani side with utmost criticism.

For its part, the NKR is ready to host a special monitoring mission for an on-site study of all the facts and investigation of the circumstances of the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan on April 2-5, 2016, as well as the violations of the norms of international humanitarian law committed during that period.