Uzeyir Jafarov

What is your view of the 31 August incident near the village of Chayli in Terter District? The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry reports that an Armenian sabotage group crossed the front-line and attempted to attack Azerbaijani positions.

After the recent visit of Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev and the signing of the Russian-Armenian agreement to extend the term of the Russian military base in Gyumri for 49 years, the Armenian side got its second wind. This has turned into a growth in openly provocative statements by the country's senior leaders that the return of the Azerbaijani land occupied by Armenia is impossible. The logical continuation of these sentiments in Armenia is increased provocations on the front line. And the fact that a diversionary group of Armenian armed forces crossed the front line near Chayli village in Terter and attempted to attack Azerbaijani positions is an illustration of what we are talking about. In other words, links between the signing of the Russian-Armenian agreement and tensions on the front line initiated by the Armenian side are obvious. I am confident that the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, who have to declare their position on this issue, will see this clear trend.

What are the Armenian side's goals in organizing these provocations?

The Armenian side has probably received an order from abroad and this is related to Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev's visit to Azerbaijan that starts today. These provocations may well be an attempt to create grounds to increase pressure on Azerbaijan to agree to a version of a Karabakh conflict settlement that would completely rule out the restoration of our territorial integrity by force. They want to say "you see how unstable the situation on the front line is without that type of agreement from Baku". Of course, the Azerbaijani leadership is well aware of the motives for the Armenian provocations and will make its position known to Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev during talks in Baku.

What further developments can be expected on the front line?

I don't think that all these provocations by the Armenian side will cause large scale hostilities, but at the same time I do not rule out a growth in provocations by Armenia, whose main goal will be to provoke Azerbaijan to make a powerful strike against the enemy. Of course, such a turn of events would meet the interests of both Armenia and the powers that use it for its purposes since Azerbaijan’s response could be used as grounds for a further campaign of pressure on our country.

Akper Hasanov
News.Az