Azernews.Az

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

November 20 sees the 23rd anniversary of the downing of the Azerbaijani helicopter by the Armenian security forces.

Armenian Armed Forces knocked the civilian helicopter carrying the high-ranking Azerbaijani, Russian and Kazakh officials, journalists and parliamentarians over the Garakend village of Xojavend district and Marzili village of Aghdam district, killing all men on board.

"Helicopter downing resulted in death of 22 people on board," said Hikmat Hajiyev, Spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

He added that the operational and investigative measures on the incident revealed the Armenian security forces to be behind the bloody event.

"Armenia continued its terrorism activities against Azerbaijan over the recent years, committing more than 30 terror attacks on the ground and air transports, as well as subway," Hajiyev said.

Armenia committed physical annihilation of state and government officials and political figures of the three countries, which were headed to the region with peaceful initiatives in 1991, he added.

"The fatal accident from the outset hampered the possibilities to regulate the conflict. This fact obviously proves that Armenia's main goal is to hinder the peaceful settlement of the conflict and liberation of the Azerbaijani lands," he noted.

Hajiyev believes that the Armenian side even today stages provocations and does its best to slow down the negotiations notwithstanding the initiatives on the peaceful resolution to the conflict.

The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left displaced thousands of Azerbaijani civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijanis who were displaced from their homes as a result of the brutal war were forced to live in refugee camps, tents and wagons in very difficult conditions. They are temporarily settled in more than 1,600 settlements across 62 cities and regions of Azerbaijan.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 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.