Azerbaijan says Armenia presented 8 new maps on minefields in Karabakh

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Azerbaijan’s National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) on Monday said Armenia presented eight new maps of minefields in the Karabakh region, which was liberated following a 44-day conflict between the two sides in the fall of 2020.

ANAMA told Azerbaijan’s state news agency Azertac that the maps it was provided mainly consist of notes on mined areas surrounding the Murovdag mountain range in the country’s Kalbajar district.

The report further said the information in the newly submitted maps is “inaccurate, unreliable, and incomplete.”

“After analyzing and processing the forms, it was determined that the recorded data do not overlap with the real minefields, and the coordinates of the reference points are incorrect and useless,” it also said.

It added that the maps covered some of the areas along the former contact line, and that information has not yet been provided about the part of the former contact line passing through Azerbaijan’s Khojavend, Tartar, and Goranboy districts, as well as areas mined by Armenian military units while retreating during the 2020 war.

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.

More than 340 Azerbaijani citizens have either been killed or injured in varying degrees due to landmines since the Second Karabakh War.​​​​​​​