International Foundation for Sustainable Peace and Development (IFSPD) reports that on July 4, 2017, civilians of the village Alkhanly of Fizuli – Guliyev Sahib (born in 1967) and her two-year-old granddaughter Guliyev Zakhra were killed by the armed forces of Armenia, firing mortars and grenade launchers from the village of Alkhanly of Fizuli, region of Azerbaijan. Another woman – Guliyeva Sarvinaz was wounded. Civilian objects were damaged.
Taking into account the Armenian’s previous attacks on settlements as well as on the peaceful civilian population of Azerbaijan, throughout ongoing Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, especially during the night from 25 to 26 February 1992 in the city of Khojaly, the attack on July 4, 2017 is a continuation of Armenia’s systematic policy on the use of violence against the peaceful Azerbaijani population.
Any direct and deliberate attacks by Armenia against the Azerbaijani civilian population and civilian objects constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law and human rights, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocol I, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and are classified as war crimes.
Observations and facts show that such attacks usually take place either on the eve or after meetings and negotiations on the settlement of the conflict with the assistance of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.
Undoubtedly, such attacks lead to the escalation in the conflict zone, and it distracts the international mediators from the essence of the peaceful settlement of the conflict, which is, de-occupation, the return of displaced persons, and the restoration of the affected territories. In other words, Armenia continues to deliberately damage the peace process and threatens international security and peace.
IFSPD hopes that the above situation will not be left out of the attention of the international community, including the co-chairs and other members of the OSCE Minsk Group, and they will take adequate measures for an early settlement of the conflict on the basis of the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of internationally recognized borders of states.