Azerbaijan's envoy to the UN has sent a list of Armenian cease-fire violations to the secretary-general for circulation at the UN General Assembly.
In an accompanying letter to Ban Ki-moon, published on the website of Azerbaijan's permanent representation at the UN, Ambassador Agshin Mehdiyev draws attention to violations of the cease-fire in July and to bellicose rhetoric by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.
"As a result of these violations and the terrorist act committed by the Armenian side on 14 July 2011, during the aforementioned period a 13-year-old Azerbaijani girl and one officer of the armed forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan were killed and two Azerbaijani civilians were seriously wounded," Mehdiyev writes.
"The increasing number of casualties over the past several months among Azerbaijani civilians residing in the front-line areas represents yet another piece of evidence testifying to Armenia’s apparent disregard of its obligations under international law and in the context of the ongoing conflict settlement process."
The annex attached to the letter cites over 50 instances of what it says are violations of the cease-fire by Armenian forces in July.
The letter goes on to recall remarks about taking Turkish territory, made by the Armenian president at a meeting with students on 25 July.
"In response to the question of a student about the perspectives of expanding Armenia’s territory at the expense of neighbouring Turkey, Serzh Sargsyan said that the realization of this duty would depend on the efforts of the new generation and referred as an example to the fulfilment of the task of capturing a part of what he called 'our fatherland — Karabakh'.
"In other words, instead of preparing its people for peace and a prosperous and stable future in friendship and cooperation with the neighbouring nations, the president of Armenia openly incites the youth and future generations of his country to new wars and violence," the letter says.
It goes on to dismiss claims by Serzh Sargsyan, most recently made at a press conference with his Polish counterpart on 28 July, that the Karabakh conflict was a struggle for self-determination.
"It has been internationally recognized, including by the principal organs of the United Nations, that Armenia unleashed the war, attacked Azerbaijan and occupied its territories, including the Daghlyq Garabagh (Nagorno-Karabakh) region, carried out ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, perpetrated other heinous crimes in the course of the war and established the ethnically constructed subordinate separatist entity on the captured Azerbaijani territory.
The president of Armenia, who bears personal responsibility for horrible atrocities against Azerbaijani civilians, must be well aware that what he considers 'the violation of the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s right for self-determination' has been unequivocally qualified by the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly, as well as by other authoritative international organizations, as the illegal use of force against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and other egregious violations of the Charter of the United Nations and international law."
The letter concludes that Armenia will have to give up its occupation of Azerbaijani territory.
"We are confident that the leadership of Armenia will be obliged to cease its provocative policy, to ensure that the occupation of Azerbaijani territory is ended, to denounce its territorial claims towards neighbouring nations and to establish civilized relations with all countries of the region. The Republic of Azerbaijan sincerely believes that there is no alternative to peace, stability and mutually beneficial regional cooperation," Agshin Mehdiyev writes and asks for the letter and annex to be circulated as a document of the UN General Assembly.
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