Ilham Aliyev visits hospital and declares readiness to negotiate

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that Baku is ready to establish a truce in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, if Yerevan stops shelling as well.

Aliyev visited the wounded soldiers who are receiving treatment. “You fought for the motherland. The motherland appreciates it a lot. The Azerbaijani people are proud of you. The Azerbaijani army intercepted the enemy's provocations. The operations you carried out will be written in military books," Interfax cited him as saying.

Recall, as Vestnik Kavkaza reported, the Iranian Foreign Minister called for a peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in a telephone conversation with his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian today.

The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran, Elmar Mammadyarov, Mohammad Javad Zarif and Mevlut Cavusoglu, will meet in the Iranian city of Ramsar on April 5-6.

Recall, on the night of April 2 all frontier positions of Azerbaijan were exposed to heavy fire from large-caliber weapons, mortars, grenade launchers and guns. In addition, Azerbaijani settlements near the front line, densely populated by civilians, were shelled.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20% of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US, are currently holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.