Armenia blasts Azerbaijan "minefield map" accusations as fake agenda

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan on Tuesday, April 6 blasted Azerbaijan's violations of international humanitarian law, noting that Baku is trying to justify its non-compliance to the November 9 statement to repatriate Armenian prisoners of war and captured civilians by putting forward a fake agenda of minefield maps.

According to Naghdalyan, the fact that the Azerbaijani officials are raising the matter exclusively as a publicity stunt is a case in point.

The Azerbaijani authorities in their recent statements accused the Armenian side of not providing maps of minefields of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) territories fallen under the Azerbaijani control.

"Throughout the conflict, the Azerbaijani side didn’t make any proposal to cooperate on demining issues; moreover, it made every effort to disrupt the implementation of demining programs in Armenia and Artsakh. It is enough to recall that Azerbaijan in 2016 blocked the extension of the mandate of the OSCE Office in Yerevan under the pretext of the latter’s support to demining program, which led to the closing of the OSCE field mission in Armenia," Naghdalyan said Tuesday.

"We call on the Azerbaijani authorities to refrain from attempts to mislead the international community and to undertake tangible steps to fulfill its commitments undertaken by the November 9 trilateral statement and under the international humanitarian law, which entails the immediate, unconditional release of all prisoners of war, captured civilians and their repatriation."