20 years of occupation of Kalbajar

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Armenian occupation of the Kalbajar region of Azerbaijan. 

The military operation to seize this border region with Armenia was carried out during the period March 27 - April 3, 1993. Armenian Armed Forces made a simultaneous attack on Kelbajar from two directions: the Agdara region of Karabakh and the Vardenis region of Armenia.

At that time, most of the armed forces of Azerbaijan were posted in the neighboring district of Lachin. In Kalbajar there were about 1000 Azerbaijani soldiers. 600 of them were located along the border with the Vardenis and Jermuk areas of Armenia over 122 km of the highlands. Another 300-350 people covered the Agdara direction.

On April 1 began the direct assault to the Kalbajar district center. The Armenian units from the Vardenis region passed into the large-scale attack, using tanks, manned by Russian crews. According to radio communications, coordination of the offensive Armenian forces was carried out from the territory of Armenia.

By the end of April 2 Armenian troops entered the district center of Kalbajar. On the same day there was the occupation of most of the northern part of Lachin and Kalbajar. On April 3, Azerbaijani troops left the last settlement in the area - the village of Yanshag and retreated to the Omar Pass on the Murovdagh Ridge.

As a result of the capture of the Kalbajar region, about 200 soldiers were killed, 300 were wounded and 35 soldiers of Azerbaijan were lost. Among the civilians the losses were 220 dead and 321 people missing.

Azerbaijan lost 2,000 square km of its territories and more than 60,000 residents of the Kalbajar region became IDP.

The reaction of the international community was in the adoption by the Security Council

UN in April 1993 of the 822nd resolution on which the occupation forces of Armenia should have immediately left the occupied territories. It recognized the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the states in the region, demanding "immediate cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of occupying forces from the occupied regions of Azerbaijan, as well as urging the parties concerned to immediately resume negotiations in order to resolve the conflict in the peace process of the Minsk Group of the CSCE."

In the next three months there were taken 853, 874 and 884 UN Security Council resolutions with the same demand. Contrary to the expectations of Azerbaijan, the UN Security Council limited itself to the adoption of the resolutions and re-entrusted the fate of the conflict to the OSCE Minsk Group, in which an explicit tone was set by Russia. To this day, no point of the UN resolutions has ever been executed by the Armenian side. - 0 -