YEREVAN (RFE/RL)—An Armenian soldier was shot dead by Azeri snipers on Friday in continuing skirmishes along the main Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” around Nagorno-Karabakh.
Military authorities in Karabakh said the 19-year-old Grigor Shakhkanian died in the Karabakh’s northeast in a ceasefire violation committed by Azerbaijani forces. Another Karabakh Armenian soldier was lightly wounded there on Thursday.
The latest deadly incident came the day before fresh talks between Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s presidents that will be hosted by their Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in the Black Sea city of Sochi. Russia and other mediating powers hope that the parties will move closer to signing a framework peace accord proposed by them.
Why don’t the Karabagh soldiers fire back?
They do, but only enough to neutralize the enemy’s fire. We don’t want the situation to escalate out of hand and get a full fledged fire-fight on our hands.
But don’t worry, there is a 1:5 ratio in place. The Azeri ranks will be five short by end of next week. Except nobody will know, because they don’t report their losses.
This seems to have become a regular occurrence before and after every meeting. If I was Sargsyan, I’d make Aliev responsible for his troops’ actions when they meet.
Because the whole twisted western world call us the aggressors
i know they should shoot at them
That’s exactly what I said, I don’t understand why don’t we use snipers as they do? We shouldn’t even wait for them to shoot, we should be more proactive and shoot before they do. That’s the only way to stop them.
This is becoming infuriating. We should respond with an artillery strike.
I don’t understand all this myself. If Azeris are continually killing Armenians and violating the ceasefire, isn’t this the same as declaration of war?
Why doesn’t Nk do something else besides retaliate. They kill, we kill, then what? Why must our young go through this? It just doesn’t make sense.
I feel something very drastic must be done to put an end to this nonsense, and obviously I’m not talking about diplomacy, as the Azeris have proven means nothing.
Hayq,
The only thing that could stop the killings is hurting the mastermind behind these attacks – Sultan Ilham Aliyev. Firing back on Azeri conscripts does not work because he does not care about his soldiers or subjects.
What he cares about is his grip to power and oil revenues he gets from BP & Co. He needs that to rule his sultanate and make sure that his son Heydar Aliyev, Jr. inherits it when the time comes.
Another important detail is that most of the Armenian deaths are caused by Azeri snipers trained and equipped by MPRI, Inc., a US mercenary firm funded by the Pentagon – see here for example: http://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/contract_detail.asp?contract_id=81
Azerbaijani side is trying to make Armenian president attending the meeting with absolutely sad mood…
How can Armenia president meet Azerbijnai President in present of journalists, showing him smiling with Azerbaijani president!? This is hard to understand why Armenian President is not cancelling the meeting?
For every bullet they fire Karabagh should fire a rocket and for every soldier they kill Karabagh should kill a hundred. It’s the only protocol azeries understand.
Just imagine what would happen if an Israeli soldier was killed on the Lebanese border.
Why not a massive and punishing response. Where is Mr. Sarkissian’s public outrage over this, yet another, Azeri attack.
Armenia should do what Israel is doing. Massive retaliation after every incident. I posted about this before. Armenia should retaliate and take over at least one square kilometer for every life lost. Land for blood. It has always been that way. Armenians have been hoping that the Cristian world to shed blood for Armenia, and hand us our lands back. We can wait another century or a dozen centuries and that will not happen. What Armenia has, it took back from Russia or Azerbaidjian. If we want more, we have to grab.
It looks very much that we are not well prepared for this war of attrition,we need to look at our strategy if we want to win this war of attrition.
Azeri soldiers are a bunch of sissies afraid to confront the Karabakhtsi face to face knowing what happened last time they were stupid enough to try, all they do is snipe at the other side from behind their mothers. The war is over, Armenians prevail, the Azeri will forever mourn for what was not theirs in the first place with Armenian assurances that their dirty feet will never touch sacred Armenian lands here to eternity.
to avoid fatality the solidiers must have protective armour. I wonder if the military could provide this hardware.
I hope Russia could supply.
You’re kidding right? Of course they have protective armor, especially the ones on the front lines. But a Kevlar jacket (which only covers the torso) cannot protect you from a sniper rifle round. It easily penetrates, especially where some enemy positions are located at just a 25 meter distance.
Hayq Jan They do fire back ,and they take Targets ,but for security reasons they don’t announce .
For us its good to announce to show the world how they violate everyday and how the world doesn’t open their mouth about it ,so for Everyone the kill from our side make sure that double the number we shoot .