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“The statement of Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan has been yet another example of their impudent behavior, alleging that due to certain humanitarian policies Azerbaijan decided to cease fire unilaterally “against the enemy” and begin strengthening the territories they claimed to have liberated. I assure you that Azerbaijanis have not liberated any territory. At this moment, only a small strip of territory in the South and another one in the North along the entire Line of Contact [they have occupied], and I believe that stripe in the North won’t hold before we conclude our meeting. They have occupied around 200-300 meters of land, sacrificing more than one serviceman per every meter of land”, - said President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in an emergency meeting with the ambassadors of the OSCE Member-States in Armenia, held today, April 4 around 1:00PM Yerevan time.

According to the press statement from the Office of the President, Serzh Sargsyan also expressed his confidence that “Azerbaijan is just trying to mislead the international community and creating prerequisites for covering up the developments in the future”.

“No so-called “unilateral ceasefire” can be discussed, since the 1994 ceasefire agreement signed by Azerbaijan is still in force”, Sargsyan reasoned, adding that it is the international obligation of Azerbaijan from the standpoint of international law “to follow the letter and spirit of the document”.

“[Nagorno] Karabakh is party to the agreement [too], and Azerbaijan shall begin talking to the authorities of [Nagorno] Karabakh directly, irrelevant of the fact they like them or not”, - Sargsyan concluded.

Ceasefire agreement between Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan, facilitated by Russia's representative to the CSCE/OSCE Minsk Group Vladimir Kazimirov, was signed on May 5, 1994, which had been maintained with only sporadic violations along the Line of Contact and international border till the latest Azerbaijani large scale offensive in the night of April 2, 2016.

Over the last two years Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh, the OSCE Minsk Group co-Chairs and over 80 U.S. Congressmen proposed (Royce-Engel bill) concrete measures to de-escalate situation and establish ceasefire monitoring equipments along the borders.

Azerbaijan has been repeatedly rejecting these calls.