National Army ordered to immediately suppress Armenian provocations

Azerbaijani Minister of Defense, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov held a service meeting at the Central Command Post of the Armed Forces on October 21.

Deputy defense ministers, commanders of the Armed Forces and military units, chiefs of the main departments, departments and services of the ministry attended the meeting, while commanders and other officials of frontline military units joined the meeting via video connection.

Bringing the instructions of President of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev to the attention of the meeting participants, Minister Hasanov analyzed the recent situation on the frontline and emphasized the forthcoming tasks.

He gave appropriate instructions to the commanders and chiefs of all categories to enhance the combat readiness and service-combat activity of military personnel, the fighting efficiency of troops, and the maneuvering capabilities of military units, especially those stationed on the frontline. Hasanov especially emphasized the importance of immediate and decisive suppression of enemy provocations.

The Azerbaijani Army, which today is considered the most modern army in the Caucasus, consists of Air Force and Air Defense Forces, the Navy, and the Land Forces. The skills and combat readiness of the Azerbaijani army are growing year by year, as the country’s Armed Forces regularly conduct military exercises. The Azerbaijani army is supplied with modern weapons and technical equipment for maintaining a high level of combat capability.

The army building process is of particular importance for Azerbaijan, as twenty percent of the country’s territory is under Armenian occupation and the country is in a state of war with the aggressor state.

Armenia broke out the war by laying territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. To this day, Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the NagornoKarabakh and adjacent regions.

Currently, not a day goes by without Armenia’s ceasefire breaking and provocations with the use of large-caliber machine guns, mortars, grenade launchers and other weapons. The Armenian side periodically shells Azerbaijani settlements located in the frontline regions, thus trying to threaten the lives of peaceful Azerbaijani citizens living there. However, the enemy receives strong rebuff from the Azerbaijani Army.

The recent Armenian provocation of October 22 took the life of an Azerbaijani soldier Zeynalov Jabbar. This has once again proved that the Armenian leadership is not interested in peace talks to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and it only tries to preserve the status quo in the occupied lands of Azerbaijan. The criminal military and political leadership of Armenia bears the full responsibility for this death and for all the enemy’s provocations on the frontline.