OSCE brings out report on mine terror against Azerbaijan

An event on “Impact of Mine Aggression on Human Rights” has been held in Warsaw, Poland within the conference entitled “Human Dimension”, organised by the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the OSCE.

Moderator of the event, Ambassador at Large of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Elshad Iskandarov, informed the participants that during almost 30-year occupation, one tenth of Azerbaijan was deliberately mined by the Armenian armed forces, more than 1.5 million mines were planted, Trend reports.

Iskandarov assessed the process of planting new mines on the Azerbaijani territory after the end of the 44-day second Karabakh war as a sign of the hypocrisy of Yerevan’s peaceful rhetoric.

“Over the past two years, more than 300 Azerbaijanis have suffered as a result of mine terror. Only after a short-term anti-terrorist operation in Karabakh, an end was put to this type of terror,” he added.

During the event, President of the Italian Federation for Human Rights, Antonio Stango, who assessed the process of planting mines in Karabakh lands as a humanitarian tragedy, as a result of which Azerbaijan fell into the second rank among European countries on the number of planted mines, made a presentation on “Destructive impact of mines on human rights”.

Proceeding from the analytical part of the report, as a result of 30 years of mine terror, Armenia grossly violated international humanitarian law and the law of justice, as well as basic human rights. While noting the massive violation of the rights to health, work and education of 700,000 former internally displaced people, which creates obstacles for their return to their homes, Stango spoke about the need to pay compensation to Azerbaijani citizens who suffered from mine terror.

Head of the department of the Mine Action Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ANAMA) Ramiz Azizov, spoke about the conducted work, noting that to date, 2,636 hectares of Karabakh lands have been cleared of 30,000 anti-personnel and 17,000 anti-tank mines, and all this was done through Azerbaijan’s internal resources.

In his speech, Executive Director of the European LINKS Foundation, founder of “Landmine Free South Caucasus” regional campaign Dennis Sammut noted that regional cooperation in the field of mine clearance has created historical opportunities for mutual trust. He called on the EU to effectively support the region, in particular Azerbaijan, in large-scale mine clearance actions, which will serve as a contribution of international partners to ensure sustainable peace in the region.

The event participants voiced the initiative to prepare a report with numerous experts, which would reflect specific proposals and an international mechanism for restoring the rights of mine victims as a result of the ended Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and the further presentation of this report to the UN.