By Edmond Y. Azadian
As of this writing, the ceasefire breach on the contact line continues, despite worldwide calls for cessation of hostilities. Although ceasefire violations since May 5, 1994 are daily occurrences in Karabagh, the one that began on Saturday, April 2, was inordinate.
In fact, it was a blitzkrieg by the Azeri forces to send messages to their friends and foes. Two days after President Aliyev met with Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington, who had advised him for a peaceful settlement of the Karabagh conflict, the Azeri army launched a surprise attack on Karabagh (Artsakh), in defiance of Kerry’s advice.
The scope and the magnitude of the attack on Artsakh were unusual, especially in terms of the armaments used. Moscow had assured Armenia that the flame-throwing arms sold to Azerbaijan recently would not be used against Armenia and or Artsakh. Despite those assurances, Baku forces used the very same weapons with impunity, resulting in scores of deaths. Those assurances imply and reveal further the cynical fact that Moscow collaborates with Baku on which weapons are to be used against Armenia and which ones not.
The damages and the casualties are enormous. Statistics are being spun and denied from both sides, and a war of words continues louder that the bombs that are still falling on border villages and strategic sites.
Despite the fact that President Erdogan of Turkey has congratulated his colleague in Baku, Ilham Aliyev, for his “victory,” the results remain inconclusive or perhaps they mark the failure of the blitz. One fact has been proved incontrovertibly, that the aggressors, once again, were the Azeris.