(A.W.)—Following news of the downing of an Artsakh Mi-24 helicopter by Azeri forces, the Minsk Group Co-Chairs—Ambassadors Igor Popov of Russia, James Warlick of the U.S., and Pierre Andrieu of France—expressed “serious concern” over the attack.
“We regret the loss of life and express our condolences to the families,” noted the Co-Chairs in the statement, and added an appeal to both countries “to avoid steps that would escalate tension along the Line of Contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan border.”
“We remind the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan of their responsibilities to respect the ceasefire and honour the commitments they made in Sochi, Newport, and Paris to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” added the Co-Chairs.
Armenian National Committee of America Executive Director Aram Hamparian was critical of the Minsk Group statement, as it places “equal blame” on both sides. “While the Minsk Group Co-Chairs appear to appreciate the gravity of Azerbaijan’s aggression—as reflected in their welcome expression of ‘serious concern’ over Baku’s fatal attack on this helicopter—the OSCE’s public response once again falls back into the deeply flawed pattern of placing equal blame on both sides for hostility that all the world knows is being directed by one man, Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan,” he said.
Hamparian also urged the White House to issue a “forceful” condemnation of the attack. “The Obama Administration must forcefully condemn Azerbaijan’s downing of an unarmed helicopter flying over Nagorno Karabagh, cut off all military aid to Baku and scale back bilateral contacts until President Aliyev ceases his aggression against Artsakh and Armenia,” said Hamparian.
“Our White House needs to give up on the long-ago discredited idea that there is some sort of parity between the parties. The facts are clear, and should guide U.S. policy: Artsakh is a democracy offering its hand in peace; Azerbaijan is a dictatorship escalating its anti-Armenian aggression. America should stand on the side of peace and democracy,” added Hamparian.
Similarly, Rep. Adam Schiff issued a statement condemning the attack. “The apparent shootdown of an unarmed helicopter over the territory of the NKR, demonstrates Azerbaijan’s callous disregard for human life and its willingness to engage in provocative acts of violence to distract from its domestic problems,” said Rep. Schiff. “This horrendous conduct threatens to destabilize the entire region.”
Azerbaijani Armed Forces shot down an Artsakh Air Force Mi-24 helicopter on a training flight on Nov. 12. The helicopter was engaged in military training exercises near the contact line. The incident took place at 1:45 p.m. local time, the press service of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic (NKR) Defense Ministry reported earlier in the day.
“Today, at 13:45, an Mi-24 helicopter was shot down in the eastern airspace [of NKR], near the Karabagh-Azerbaijani border, by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces—a ceasefire violation. The area where the helicopter was shot is very close to the Line of Contact. The enemy continues to fire intensively, with weapons of various caliber, at the area where the incident took place,” the NKR Defense Ministry said in a statement.
According to a source in Artsakh, three members of the Artsakh Air Force were killed in the attack.
The training flight was part of joint Armenia-Artsakh military drills in the area. The “Unity 2014” exercises involved over 30,000 troops, 3,000 armored vehicles, artillery, and air defense units, according to the NKR Defense Ministry website.
Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has claimed that the attack was a defense maneuver. “On November 12 at about 1:45 pm, the Mi-24 helicopter of the Armenian Armed Forces flying 1700 meters north-east of Kangarli village of Aghdam region attacked the Azerbaijani positions. The enemy helicopter was shot down with return fire,” reported the Azeri APA news agency, which had received a statement from the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.
Talking about this incident does not help! Only one possible decision can be made: As Kuran tells the Aseris, Ain bil ain – sin bil sin ! Forgiveness is no military expression !
well said Adam Schiff – you have spoken the truth. Hamparian is spot on with his comments. If the Minsk group is concerned why then do they not do anything at all with the responsible party – this is becoming another UN organisation who is trying to act with some conviction but is unable to make any inroads into the actual issues. Forget about the UN they are the useless organisation with no backbone. Has anybody thought about “STOP” the arm sales “PERIOD” – guess this will cost the greedy countries and void the suffering of human beings. Shame on all of them.
What will the co-chairs state?…If an appropriate response is given to these outlawed Azeries….will the co-chairs feel very very sorry?….about the loss of lives on the Azery side suggesting Armenians are responsible of the escalation?…. Are these co chairs good for anything?….or are they having a lofty salary pretending of doing a job?…shame on these people!.
How sickening it is that every single time the terrorist state of Azerbaijan commits these kinds of terror acts against Artsakh or Armenia, it’s then followed by that same ridiculous statement by those three clowns from the Minsk Group in which they appeal to both sides “to avoid steps that would escalate tension along the Line of Contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan border.” And exactly how is the Armenian side escalating the tension in all this when it happens to always be the Azerbaijani side which launches frequent terrorist raids as well as daily sniper gunfire from their side of the border? It’s perfectly clear by now that these three clowns from the Minsk Group (United States, France, Russia) are certainly not concerned about the acts of terror being inflicted upon the Armenian side by Azerbaijan. On the contrary, they’re trying to preserve the economic interests that their three corrupt, hypocrite countries have in Azerbaijan, especially the oil-greedy United States which has oil contracts with Baku.
I watched the footage. The helicopter was not attacking at all. The Azeri soldiers fired off a AA and blew up one out of the two helicopters, while laughing and cheering. May they burn in hell.
Also what kind of a stupid response is this from Minsk? They should have blasted Azerbaijan for this action. Over recent times Azerbaijan is testing Armenia and the world, and may be very well planning an invasion for the future.
Strike back now before they wake up from their drunkard celebration
strike where it hurts, their oil wells.
Zargir lao, mrnim kezi, out fedayees sang that a hundred years ago under similar conditions
The Azeri government, especially their leader Aliev should be strongly reprehended about their irresponsible act, and some action by the Minsk Group should be taken. It so happens that it is always the Azeri side that does the attack, knowing that nothing is going to be done. I am also very concerned about the United States for their lack of support of the democratic Republic of Armenia. If this is all the Minks Group can do, I suggest to dissolve them, since they are not
performing their jobs properly.
George Berberian
“We remind the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan…”
Where are these charlatans coming from? Why do you remind ‘Armenia’?? How was Armenia “involved” in this terrorist act that you are reminding Armenia instead of only the terrorist BP puppet nation of Azerbaijan which is solely responsible here for this blatant act of terror and violating a treaty it asked for itself?
Armenia should in turn remind the OSCE, that it now has options of its own, including the recognition of Artsakh, harming Chevron’s/BP’s “investments”, a full right to do some aircraft shooting of its own including in Artsakh and Nakhichevan, etc.
In fact Armenia should have long ago given this ultimatum, any act of terror by Azerbaijan on any of its aircraft, civilian or military, would result in the immediate recognition of Artsakh and its subsequent annexation.
I have been saying that for years. WHY serge continues with these nonsensical negotiations is beyond me. Maybe they are promising him money, (bribe). It is the Armenian authority way of conducting business, unfortunately for the rest of the Armenian population.
Joe,
We in the diaspora should realize that Sargsyan’s job is not easy or simple. He has to balance relations and deal with Russia, the US, NATO and at the same time Genocide-denying Turkey, and if that was not enough, an insane, lunatic nation like Azerbaijan constantly threatening war to top it all off. Unfortunately for us, we are not the big fish to be making a lot of the decisions we should be making, and cannot afford to simply openly ignore or deny the “projects” shoved on us by the world super powers. Armenia has to do it in a smart and subtle way.
And what is Armenia planning on doing and what are we waiting for?
Proper diagnosis is half the cure. Obviously the Minsk group is useless in resolving this conflict and should be ignored for the most part. The TRUE guarantee of Armenia is its military. The rest can ALL BE discarded. That’s the main lesson of the genocide itself wasn’t it? TRUST THYSELF ONLY. May God bless Armenia and its heroic army.
Baku has been trying hard to draw Armenia into a serious confrontation on the border since last summer. Bakus’ purpose is to cause a situation in the region which would derail Yerevan’s upcoming membership in the Eurasian Union. So, this provocation by Baku has geopolitical undertones. Yes, Armenia has to respond in some manner, but the response has to be measured/asymmetrical. We can’t start a war simply because that is what Turks want. Going forward, we need to better protect our forces and hit back at a time of our choosing. Once Armenia becomes a full member in the Eurasian Union these provocations will gradually come to a halt.
PS: Russians are a great help for Armenia in the west, the Turkish-Armenian border. We don’t need direct Russian help in Artsakh. Azerbaijan is something Armenia can easily handle.
What are we waiting for ? Until Azerbaidjan becomes militaraly much stronger then us?These are all acts of war, if they want to start a war lets do it and this time take over Nakhitchevan and bomb the oil pipe lines.And as for the OSCE idiots you know where they can go.
I think the Minsk group is protecting their own interests (oil), they are not impartial and should not have any say over these matters.
That being said, I think Armenia/Artzakh should take *the high road* and not get caught up in Azerbaijan’s aggression. The Minsk group would like a war, so they can sell more of their weapons…
And here is another idea for the Minsk group: the Artsakh Republic can now make its own demands and use this incident to charge Azerbaijan of terrorism and torpedoing the peace process, and in addition, demand a buffer zone inside Azerbaijan. Now Armenia can also say Artsakh must be a party to the peace negotiations as a separate, independent entity, because Azerbaijan attempted to choose a “military solution” over peace and wasted the efforts of the past 20 years.
Only war and take more lands will teach them a lesson, Nakhchevan has to go next !
Azerbaijan has violated the peace and carried out acts of aggression for over 2 decades. The Minsk Group has turned a blind eye to these facts for their own economic and political gains. Lets accept these facts and be ready at all times to deal punitively with such aggression. Punish the perpetrating troops heavily and do targeted attacks on the oil pipelines. This is the only way it will have the dezired effect on all parties concerned.
Several things;
1-) There is no peace agreement, only ceasefire.
2-)The US State Department and Putin have said nothing about the incident, which chimes to me that they will turn their blind eyes, albeit limited, to further Azeri advancement, which I expect in 2015.
3-) Don’t expect anything from America and Russia. The American public is fed up their government meddling with others’ conflicts where they don’t have a dog in. Given the falling oil prices, Russia needs Azerbaijan more than ever. So, Moscow will let Azeris get what they want.
4-) This incident showed that the Azeri military has grown, thanks to Russia and Israel, to the point where they can take enough risks conduct such an attack.
5-) Some poor fellas are talking about grabbing more land and Nahcivan, which will not happen in the next two thousands years. You might as well contemplate to attack the Turkish city of Van. An attack on Nahcivan will trigger a Turkish military action.
First of all, that is NAKHICHEVAN. And second of all, Turkey can gobble all it wants, the key factor is Russia, not your genocidal terrorist state. When Russia decides to tear up any of those illegal treaties with Turkey and puts its military in action, no Ahmet Mahmet, Kemal Memal, or Recep Mecep will matter one bit. As for Azerbaijan… keep it tuned in, and you will see to what extent the stateless remnants of Chingiz have grown.
Several things more:
1)Nobody said there is peace agreement. A Ceasefire Agreement, which was requested by Azerbaijan, means exactly that: Cease firing, as in Stop firing; End firing; Cease and Desist; Stand down; Cease Firing. Clear ?
2)Keep expecting: by 2015, Azerbaijan will be in full blown civil war: they can barely contain the popular discontent now. With no more free oil money from the dying oil wells, the hungry mobs will attack the opulent Aliyev Crime Syndicate in full force. Oppressed, indigenous peoples – Tats, Talysh, Avars, Lezgins,…- will overthrow the invadonomad Turkic tribes (and the Kurdish clan of Aliyev Crime Syndicate) and declare several independent statelets.
3)Thanks for the advice: we don’t and we don’t need to. With falling oil prices Russia needs Azerbaijan ? Only in the alternative Turkish Denialverse. Russia has more oil than knows what to do with. Azerbaijan is a pest: it will be crushed and dismembered by Russia and Iran. Good night.
4)This incident has shown that Turkbaijani military is desperate. They lost about 120 KIA Jul 28 – Aug 4, to our 6 KIA. They are besides themselves with impotent rage, so took this irrational, reckless step. NKR and RoA will wait. When the time is right. Turkbaijanis see their dreams slipping away: oil running out; oil prices crashing; all those $ billions spent on military hardware that is collecting dust and rusting; Baku burning cash at 10X the rate of RoA+NKR military and all they have to show for is one Mi-24 shot down. We lost 3 of our precious men. Tragic, but 120+ Turkic invadonomads were sent to eternal rest – courtesy of gracious Armenian hosts. So sorry (Not really).
5)Nakhichevan: Recently, Armenian mountain troops established Armenian control over several hundred square kilometers of our historic lands. Now Armenian troops have the high ground. Armenian military did this without firing a single shot. When Turkbaijani invadonomad goons found out Armenian troops were surrounding them from all side, they ran in panic. What were you saying about Turkish military actions ?
6)‘Turkish’ city of Van ? Surely you jest. The occupied Armenian city of Van will be in the new Republic of Kurdistan, which will become reality next several years. The criminal, genocidal state of Turkey is breaking up. Turks themselves declare that they have lost control of Turkish Kurdistan. (…let me know if you want the links from TodaysZaman and Hurriyet Daily News). The jig is up: the unnatural state of Turkey will break into its natural constituent parts. Ethnic Turks can live happily ever after in the new, improved Turkistan. Armenians will make an offer to Kurds re Wilsonian Armenia: the offer will be so good, that Kurds cannot refuse.
1. A ceasefire which was begged by Azerbaijani losers in the face of desperation, complete military defeat, total humiliation, over half their army personnel killed and in fear of losing their entire artificial state. A cowardly act to save face to survive to fight another day. Today is different day but we are facing the same coward Azerbaijanis emboldened not by courage but by dwindling petrodollars and the best they can do is to shoot down an unarmed and unprovoked helicopter in the midst of a non-combat situation and a military exercise to give fake impetus to the souls of a defeated and fabricated nation.
2. In absence of US and Russian meddling and hand-holding, Azerbaijan will have no choice but to put up or shut up, a situation no defeated, unsure and insecure artificial state would ever want to be in. Without foreign intervention, Azerbaijan will be exposed and soon it will be the end of Aliyev dynasty but the draft-dodging petro-thief Aliyev won’t put himself in that situation at the risk of losing power over his gas-station disguised as a country.
3. Moscow “letting” Azeris get what they want and actually attempting to get what they want are two different things. The last time I checked the Azeri double-talks, the artificial state of Azerbaijan was an “independent” and sovereign country so why would Azerbaijan even wait or care about what Russia does or has to say other than the fact that they have to play the Russian game to try to compensate for their lack of manhood to put their petrodollars where their mouths are.
4. This preplanned incident showed that desperate Azeris, despite billions spent on buying useless toys, still have not grown a pair to take unilateral step to make their actions match their hollow war-mongering rhetoric, a mere lip service for public consumption, and instead like scavenging hyenas cease an opportunity to capitalize on without taking further risks.
5. The liberation of the occupied ancient Armenian province of Artsakh, falsely known as Karabakh, by the “poor’ Armenians was also far from the imagination of not some but many pseudo-Turkish Azerbaijanis twenty years ago and only seventy years since the invention of their artificial state but it did happen and is a reality today. Given the right conditions, the same can happen to the ancient Armenian province of Nakhichevan. Recently Turkey proved its vulnerability without NATO when its leaders ran begging the Dutch and the Germans in the alliance to come protect their borders from war-torn little Syria. Without Turkish NATO membership, not only Nakhichevan and Vaspurakan (Van) will be joined to their Armenian homeland, but so will the five remaining Armenian provinces under Turkish occupation.
Ahmet,
Exactly what sort of drug are you using that renders you these kinds of hallucinations? For your own education, a cease-fire happens to be an agreement in which two sides who were previously at war with one another, agree to halt aggressive actions upon the other. Therefore, this translates to an agreement of peace.
“Given the falling oil prices, Russia needs Azerbaijan more than ever.” Actually, Russia has an abundance of oil. The amount of oil that Azerbaijan currently has, is equivalent to the size of a little cockroach as compared to the amount of oil that Russia has. By the way, don’t forget that Azerbaijan’s supply of oil will be fully used up in ten to fifteen years.
“This incident showed that the Azeri military has grown.” Exactly how? Each time those Azeri soldiers attempt to cross the border and launch a raid, they immediately get squashed like little cockroaches. Remember what happened back in July/August of this year? The Azeris launched a total of twenty raids and all twenty got squashed. Instead of growing, the Azeri military is deteriorating. At this point, there’s nothing else those Azeri cowards can do other than spraying sniper gunfire at Armenian soldiers and civilians on the other side of the border, as well as shooting down unarmed helicopters engaging into training flights within the Artsakh Republic’s airspace.
“An attack on Nakhichevan will trigger a Turkish military reaction.” Yes, that’s true. However, keep in mind that sometime around the year, 2040, when the Kurds end up becoming the largest group in Anatolia, and as a result, there ends up being no more Turkey, what will happen? At that particular moment, who will the Azeris have in their corner to prevent the Armenians from attaching the historic Armenian land of Nakhichevan to Eastern Armenia? And, it will also be at this moment that the Armenians will finally attach the Western Armenian provinces of Van, Bitlis, Erzurum, and Trebizond with the rest of the Armenian homeland. What a beautiful moment that’s going to be!
The highest skilled LIARS are presidents and lawyers/politicians, including Minsk group Co-Chairs!