Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The consistent ceasefire violations and shelling of the Azerbaijani positions by the Armenian militaries continue to claim the lives of the servicemen.

Azerbaijani soldier Taleh Karimov was killed in the battle with Armenian side on the contact line on December 17, the Azerbaijani defense ministry reported.

This is the second loss of the Azerbaijani Army for this week. On December 16, right after the OSCE monitoring on the contact line, the Armenian armed forces renewed the ceasefire breaches and killed an Azerbaijani serviceman.

The Defense Ministry warned that overall responsibility for aggravation of the situation on the contact line lies with the Armenian offensive military-political leadership.

Armenian armed forces violated the ceasefire with Azerbaijan 80 times by using mortars in various parts of the contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian armies in the last 24 hours, the defense ministry reported.

Azerbaijani positions located in the village of Gizilhajili of Gazakh district, underwent fire from the positions located in the villages of Vazashen and Berkaber of Armenia’s Ijevan district.

Azerbaijani positions also took fire from the positions located near the villages of Talish, Gulustan of Goranboy district, Goyarkh, Chileburt of Terter. Javahirli, Kengerli, Sarijali, Novruzlu, Shuraabad, Shikhlar, Yusifjanli, Merzili, Garagashli of Agdam, Kuropatkino of Khojavend, Gorgan, Garakhanbeyli, Ashagi Seyidahmadli of Fizuli district and Mehdili of Jabrayil district.

Another ceasefire violation came from the positions located on the nameless heights of Goranboy, Khojavend, Fizuli and Jabrayil districts.

Azerbaijani armed forces carried out 85 strikes on enemy positions.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, more than 4,000 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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