Warmonger Kerry has meeting with Azerbaijan dictator and like a day after conflict erupts, which has been dormant for ca 2 decades...
..i know, 'murica is innocent! 'murica never starts conflicts, they are just fluffy puppies who think happy thoughts.
What? Armenia doesn't join NATO fast enough and need some incentive to bend over?? Or this just revenge for Russia winning in Syria?
Every US involvement just escalates n turns everything to shit n then they hold their hands up asking "what did we do? u got no pruufz, CNN says so!"
and then after...http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN0WW2QB
Kerry calls for 'ultimate resolution' of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
World | Wed Mar 30, 2016 7:00pm
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Wednesday for "an ultimate resolution" of the two-decade-old Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia during talks with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev at the State Department.
Aliyev is in Washington for a two-day nuclear security summit hosted by President Barack Obama on Thursday and Friday.
"We want to see an ultimate resolution of the frozen conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh that needs to be a negotiated settlement and something that has to be worked on over time," Kerry said during a brief photo opportunity with Aliyev.
The conflict broke out in the dying years of the Soviet Union but efforts to reach a permanent settlement have failed despite mediation led by France, Russia and the United States.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians.
Aliyev thanked the United States for trying to end the conflict but said it could only be resolved through a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the "immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops" from Azerbaijan.
"The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, all the conflicts in post-Soviet area and in the world, must be resolved based on territorial integrity of the countries," he said.
Oil producing Azerbaijan frequently threatens to take the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region back by force. Clashes around the region have fueled worries of a wider conflict breaking out in the South Caucasus, which is crossed by oil and gas pipelines.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Tom Brown)
casualtieshttp://www.rt.com/news/338102-armeni...bakh-violence/
Armenia, Azerbaijan accuse each other of sharp Karabakh escalation with tanks, artillery & aircraft.
2 Apr, 2016 06:49
Hostilities on the border of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region with Azerbaijan have flared up overnight, with reports of gun and mortar fire, as well as casualties on both sides. Azeri and Armenian defense ministries accused each other of provoking the escalation.
Azerbaijan said Armenian troops opened fire 127 times over 24 hours along the border. They were using mortars and heavy machine guns, the statement released on Saturday morning said.
Armenia said Azeri troops went on the offensive overnight and were using tanks, artillery and military aircraft.
Yerevan distinguishes its own armed forces from those of the breakaway republic, while Baku considers them all Armenian.
Militias in the unrecognized Karabakh republic, the focal point of the conflict, claimed they shot down two Azeri helicopter gunboats and two drones, and destroyed at least two tanks. Azerbaijan confirmed losing one helicopter and one tank as well as 12 soldiers.
Baku said it took under its control several strategic points on the border, from which villages on the Azeri side could be threatened by Armenian forces. The sites are currently being fortified by the military, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said.
The ministry claimed it destroyed “six Armenian tanks, 15 artillery pieces, several bunkers and over 100 enemy soldiers.”
The Armenian Defense Ministry has refuted Azerbaijani claims, saying that they “don’t correspond to reality.”
“The Armenian Defense Ministry officially states that information distributed by Azeri media that Azerbaijani armed forces allegedly captured several settlements on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh region and that losses of the Armenian side amount to dozens in military hardware and hundreds in manpower is blatant disinformation,” the ministry said in a statement.
Karabakh authorities said two teenage students were seriously injured near their school by rocket fire from Azerbaijan. Separate reports in the local media said six civilians and three soldiers were taken to hospital with injuries received during the clashes.
The two countries blamed each other for triggering the escalation.
“The responsibility for the situation is fully on Armenia, the aggressor and occupier nation,” the Azeri Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Armenia said it condemned the actions of the “Azerbaijan military along the engagement line with Nagorno-Karabakh and the border with Armenia.” Both accused their rival of targeting civilians in Azerbaijan and Karabakh respectively.
Reports from Karabakh say Azerbaijan sent a recon unit across the border overnight. It was intercepted by local forces, said Dmitry Pisarenko, who heads the Armenian branch of the Russian news agency Sputnik. A firefight ensued and rapidly escalated into a major battle, involving tanks, helicopters and artillery, he said.
Calls for ceasing hostilities
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on all sides in the conflict to immediately cease hostilities, said Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow was in contact with other members of the OSCE Minsk group, which is tasked with monitoring the Karabakh truce, and was closely watching the development of the situation. The group is currently co-chaired by Russia, the US and France and also includes Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Turkey and the two conflicting countries.
The group co-chairs released a statement after a meeting to express their concern with the scale of hostilities and call on the parties involved to avoid further violence. The group said it regretted the loss of lives, including civilians, caused by the clashes.
Concern over the escalation was also voiced by EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, who called on all sides to show restraint and observe the truce. She said the EU supported the mediation effort by the OSCE Minsk group.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu held emergency phone talks with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts to discuss how the situation can be defused, the ministry said in a statement.
The two former soviet republics are locked in a decades-long conflict over Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian mountainous region that was part of Azerbaijan, but broke away in 1988.
The region declared independence in 1991, with a bloody three-year war following it. Russia brokered a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994, but the tensions have never actually stopped since then and there is occasional violence.
The mutual distrust between Armenia and Azerbaijan is rooted in a long history of ethnic and religious conflicts in the region as well as their participation in the rivalry of regional heavyweights – the Turks, the Russians and the Persians over the centuries.
Both nations had their first bid for statehood in the wake of the collapse of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Among other things their independence resulted in a war in 1918. When Moscow reinstated its control over the region, the conflict was swept under the rug, but never fully extinguished.
http://www.rt.com/news/338196-nagorn...baijan-turkey/
Azerbaijan envoy says ready for military solution to Nagorno-Karabakh issue, Erdogan backs Baku.
2 Apr, 2016 21:21
Azerbaijan is ready to switch from a diplomatic to a military solution over the breakaway Nagorny-Karabakh region, Polad Bulbuloglu, Azeri ambassador to Russia, said following escalation in the area on Saturday.
“The attempts of a peaceful solution to this conflict have been underway for 22 years. How much more will it take? We are ready for a peaceful solution to the issue. But if it’s not solved peacefully then we will solve it by military means,” Bulbuloglu told Govorit Moskva radio station.
According to the ambassador, 21 percent of the Azerbaijani territory is now occupied by Armenia.
The compromise on the part of Azerbaijan is an offer to the Armenian military to abandon the disputed territory. Only after that may the dialogue start about the coexistence of the Azeri and Armenian peoples in Nagorny-Karabakh, he stressed.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan promised that his country will fully execute its obligations to ensure the security of Nagorny-Karabakh.
"We have a legal right to so because we are a party to the ceasefire agreement signed in 1994,” he said on Saturday.
Sargsyan urged the need to sign a mutual military assistance agreement with Nagorny-Karabakh, tasking the Foreign Ministry with making all the necessary preparations.
Heavy fighting involving artillery, tanks and aircraft broke out on the contact line between Azerbaijan and Nagorny-Karabakh early on Saturday.
It’s so far unclear who's responsible for the harshest escalation in the region since 1994, with Baku and Yerevan shifting blame to each other and claiming to have delivered significant losses to the opposition.
The Azeri Defense Ministry said that it had lost 12 troops, a helicopter and a tank during hostilities on Saturday.
According to Sargsyan, 18 Armenian soldiers were killed and 35 injured in the fighting with Azerbaijani forces.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, to express condolences over the death of Azeri troops on the Nagorny-Karabakh border.
"The Turkish president expressed his support and solidarity in relation to the events on the contact line between Armenian and Azerbaijani [forces] and stressed that the Turkish people will always be with the people of Azerbaijan," the Azeri president’s press service said in a statement.
Later, Erdogan blamed the inaction of the OSCE Minsk Group for the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute remaining unsettled after all those years, Aksam newspaper reported.
"If the Minsk Group had solved the problem in due time, we wouldn’t have witnessed the events now taking place on the contact line” between Azeri and Armenian forces, the Turkish leader said in the US as he opened an Islamic center in Lanham, Maryland.
Ironically, Turkey is part of the Minsk Group, which has Russia, the US and France as its co-chairs, and also includes Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and the two conflicting nations.
The defense ministers of Azerbaijan and Turkey also discussed the events in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz expressed his full support to Baku, saying it has a “just stance” on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also condemned Armenia for an alleged attack and urged Yerevan to fulfill the terms of the ceasefire.
The two former Soviet republics are locked in a decades-long conflict over Nagorny-Karabakh, a predominantly-Armenian mountainous region that was part of the Azerbaijani SSR, but broke away in 1988.
The region declared independence in 1991, with a bloody three-year war ensuing. Russia brokered a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994, but the tensions have never actually stopped since then and there is occasional violence.
The mutual distrust between Armenia and Azerbaijan is rooted in a long history of ethnic and religious conflicts in the region, as well as their participation in the rivalry of regional heavyweights – the Turks, the Russians and the Persians over the centuries.
Both nations had their first bid for statehood in the wake of the collapse of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Among other things their independence resulted in a war in 1918.
When Moscow reinstated its control over the region for the USSR, the conflict was swept under the rug, but never fully extinguished.http://www.rt.com/news/338220-azerba...kh-hostilites/
Azerbaijan claims cease fire in Nagorny-Karabakh, Armenia says hostilities continue.
3 Apr, 2016 09:07
Azerbaijan has decided to unilaterally cease all hostilities in Karabakh, the country's Defense Ministry said. It added it would resume military action if attacked.
“Based on our love of peace and the calls of international organizations, Azerbaijan decided to unilaterally cease military response action,” ministry spokesman Vagif Dyargahly said.
The ministry, however, reiterated its accusations that Armenia is to blame for the continued hostilities. It said that it would return fire, if their opponents try to take back territory captured by the Azeris during the Sunday offensive.
“The Armenian side tried to take back the territories liberated by Azerbaijan's military yesterday and lost 10 tanks and soldiers,” ministry spokesman Vagif Dyargahly said.
Azerbaijan considers Nagorno-Karabakh military as Armenian and refers to them as such. Nagorny-Karabakh is self-governed, but has strong support from Armenia.
The condition may be something that Karabakh authorities would not agree to observe. On Sunday morning, their military recaptured one of the hills previously lost to Azerbaijan, according to the Armenian Defense Ministry.
The Armenian military said the declaration of a ceasefire contradicts the facts on the ground.
“Azerbaijan's statement is an info trap. It does not mean the hostilities were ceased,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Ovannisyan wrote on Facebook.
Azeri President Ilkham Aliev said he regarded the results of the clashes “a major military victory,” during a security council session on Saturday, television channel AzTV reported.
“It was not our fault. We responded to a provocation and did it right,” he said. “If Armenian soldiers don't want to die, let them leave our land.”
The violence in Nagorny-Karabakh, a breakaway Azeri region with a predominantly Armenian population that fought an independence war in the 1990s, escalated on Friday night.
Sporadic clashes along the engagement line reportedly continued on Sunday despite the effort of the OSCE Minsk group, which is tasked with preserving the truce in the conflict zone, to stop the violence.
Baku and Yerevan accused each other of provoking hostilities. It remains unclear which party triggered the latest round of escalation in Nagorny-Karabakh.
The exact number of casualties has also not been independently verified, as the numbers of enemy combatants killed or injured as claimed by each side are drastically higher than the corresponding number reported by the opposite party. Dozens are estimated to have been killed or injured.