Armenia's decision to provide minefield maps not confidence-building measure: Azerbaijan

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Azerbaijan said Thursday that the intention of Armenia’s National Security Service to present minefield maps to the country is not a humanitarian one and could not be considered a confidence-building measure.

The statement by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that Azerbaijan, both before and after the Second Karabakh War in the fall of 2020, repeatedly demanded Armenia to submit minefield maps, but that the accuracy of those given to Baku is only 25%.

It said Azerbaijan has frequently pointed out that the provided maps are “ineffective, incomplete and do not accurately portray the reality on the ground.”

“At the same time, it is worth noting that more than 55% of landmine explosions in recent years occurred in locations outside the areas where maps were provided by Armenia,” the statement said, adding 342 Azerbaijanis have become mine victims since the fall of 2020.

It said that Azerbaijan expects Armenia to "submit accurate maps of all land-mined sites that have not yet been fully presented to Azerbaijan.”

“Moreover, urgent measures have to be taken by Armenia to provide information on the fates of 4,000 missing Azerbaijanis and places of mass graves where Azerbaijanis have been buried over the last 30 years,” it added.

Earlier in the day, Armenia’s National Security Service said it would transfer new minefield maps to the Azerbaijani side “in the coming days.”

Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Azerbaijan liberated most of the region during the war in the fall of 2020, which ended with a Russian-brokered peace agreement, opening the door to normalization.

The Azerbaijani army initiated an anti-terrorism operation in Karabakh last September to establish constitutional order, after which illegal separatist forces in the region surrendered.