War expert calls on UN Security Council to exert pressure on Armenia in issue of landmine maps

Though six months have passed since the agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia on November 10, 2020, which put an end to the Karabakh conflict, the liberated areas have not been cleared of mines, and civilians and journalists are still dying in these territories, Ukrainian military and political observer Alexander Kovalenko told Report's Eastern European Bureau.

He noted that though the Azerbaijani army put an end to the 30-year-old Armenian occupation and liberated the lands, Armenia should be held accountable for the failure to perform the obligations undertaken: "The journalists who were killed in the landmine explosion have fallen victims to this irresponsibility. If six months after the agreement was signed, Azerbaijani journalists are blown up by a mine, this is already a criminal provocation. The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is over, and the state border with Armenia is being restored. The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines came effective in 1999 and, according to the UN convention, the parties to the conflict undertake to hand over the maps of minefields and not to use anti-personnel mines after the end of the war. The adopted convention aims to ensure the safety of the civilian population."

Alexander Kovalenko drew attention to the fact that the reluctance of the Armenian side to transfer minefield maps to Azerbaijan may be deliberate and malicious in nature: "Nagorno-Karabakh will remain a potentially dangerous region for a long time ahead because the clearance of ammunition and mines there is not a quick process. In turn, the Armenian side, having actually refused to provide Baku with maps of minefields, makes one wonder about Yerevan's further intentions about this region and its actions there now. After all, it is obvious that such an approach to demining Nagorno-Karabakh opens up vast opportunities for sabotage activities of Armenian units in Azerbaijani territory. Planting new explosive devices and mines, in the absence of a corresponding map of the Armenian minefields in Baku, makes it possible to carry out this sabotage activity with the justification that any subsequent explosions and casualties are an 'echo of war' and not an element of the current sabotage war and actions of the Armenian subdivisions."

At about 11.00 am on June 4, a van with employees of television channels and news agencies sent to the liberated Kalbajar to perform their professional duties was blown up by a mine on the road leading to the Susuzlug village. The incident took the lives of three people, including a camera operator of the AzTV channel Siraj Abishev, a journalist of the Azerbaijan State News Agency AZERTAC Maharram Ibrahimov, and a local official, Arif Aliyev. Four others were hospitalized with various bodily injuries.