'Armenia's cease-fire violations reveal hypocritical policy'

By Burak Dag

ANKARA (AA) - Armenia did not comply with temporary cease-fire, which clearly shows hypocritical policy it conducts, said a top Azerbaijani official on Saturday.

"Temporary humanitarian ceasefire achieved as a result of political will of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. But Armenia continues to break it even today," said Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the president, according to Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry on Twitter.

"Our goal remains to achieve territorial integrity of our country within its internationally recognized borders. The sustainable peace is not achievable until full withdrawal of #Armenia’s occupational forces from Azerbaijan," he added.

A humanitarian cease-fire agreed for the exchange of prisoners and retrieval of bodies in Nagorno-Karabakh came into force at 12 p.m. local time (0800GMT) on Saturday.

The truce came after a trilateral meeting in Moscow on Friday between the foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

Fighting began on Sept. 27, when Armenian forces targeted civilian Azerbaijani settlements and military positions in the region, leading to casualties.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.

Some 20% of Azerbaijan's territory has remained under illegal Armenian occupation for some three decades.

Four UN Security Council and two UN General Assembly resolutions, as well as many international organizations, demand the withdrawal of the occupying forces.