Azerbaijan expects accurate maps of minefields from Armenia

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry took note of the statement of the Armenian National Security Service of 25 January on Yerevan's readiness to transfer eight new maps of minefields to Baku. This is stated in the commentary of the Foreign Ministry.

The Foreign Ministry notes that "Armenia's indiscriminate, mass and purposeful mining of Azerbaijani territories has become one of the main threats to large-scale reconstruction works and the return of IDPs to the liberated territories. In addition, this activity of Armenia is a war crime, a serious violation of international humanitarian law and the commitments undertaken by Armenia," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry further said in its commentary.

Note that the accuracy of the maps of minefields provided by Armenia after the signing of the Trilateral Statement of 10 November 2020 (by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia) was only 25%.
"We have repeatedly stated that the maps provided are useless, incomplete and do not reflect the real situation. Although these maps show that 400,000 mines are buried in the territories of Azerbaijan, in reality the number of mines exceeds 1 million," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said.

Recall that 55 per cent of mine explosions since the 2020 war have occurred in places "outside the maps handed over by Armenia".

In the reviewed period, 342 Azerbaijani citizens suffered from mine explosions.  65 people died, including 3 journalists.

Besides, more than 500,000 mines were laid in the zone of deployment of peacekeepers. These mines were produced and delivered to Karabakh after the end of the Second Karabakh War on 20 November 2020.

The Foreign Ministry believes that the NSC statement "cannot be considered as a confidence-building measure" as it does not provide for the provision of "precise maps" of all mined territories.

"The Azerbaijani side expects Armenia to provide accurate maps of all mined territories that have not been fully transferred to Azerbaijan. Besides, Armenia should take urgent measures to provide information on the fate of nearly 4,000 Azerbaijanis missing for the last 30 years, as well as on the places of mass graves of Azerbaijanis," the commentary of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry concluded.