On the night of 15-16, 2008, a detachment of special assignment of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces made an attempt to penetrate into the rear of the NKR Defense Army in the south-eastern direction of the positions of the NKR Armed Forces, thus having grossly violated the requirements of the ceasefire regime. As a result of the measures taken by the servicemen of the NKR Defense Army, being on duty, the group was hurled back to the initial position, thus incurring losses in manpower (leaving a corpse of one of the killed near the front line position of the NKR Defense Army).

In the morning of November 16, 2008, the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs without delay notified the OSCE MG Co-Chairs and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-office of the incident. The Ministry suggested to conduct immediately a crisis-monitoring in the given section of the contact line of the NKR and AR Armed Forces.

The Ministry points out the fact that the attempt of the breakthrough was made by the Azerbaijani side during the OSCE MG Co-chairs visit to the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, as well as after the Moscow Declaration signed recently by Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, in which, particularly, the readiness of the sides to contribute to the establishment of an atmosphere of stability and security in the region via political settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is mentioned.

Noting that this is not the first sally of the subversive groups of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan to the front lines of the Armed Forces of the NKR for this year, the Ministry reminds that the NKR leadership has repeatedly directed the mediators’ attention to the necessity of taking immediate measures by the international community on strengthening the ceasefire regime in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone and ensuring the irreversibility of peace.

Taking into consideration the official Baku’s destructive steps, which, unfortunately, have not received proper political assessment by international mediators, the Ministry places the responsibility for the possible escalation of tension on the contact line entirely upon the leadership of Azerbaijan.

An appropriate note reflecting the NKR authorities’ official viewpoint on the given issue has been sent to the OSCE Chairman-in-office and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in- Office.