BRUSSELS, September 20. /TASS/. Members of the European Parliament called upon the EU Council to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan for its military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh in a statement issued on Tuesday.
"We condemn in the strongest terms today's pre-planned and unjustified attack of Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh.," the document says. "In the absence of an immediate halt to the ongoing attack, we call on the Council to fundamentally reconsider the EU's relations with Azerbaijan in this light, and consider imposing sanctions against responsible Azerbaijani authorities."
The European Parliament is "seriously concerned about the consequences of Azerbaijan's actions on the civilian population." Its members "urge Azerbaijan to refrain from using military escalation as a pretext to force the exodus of the local population."
The statement calls "for the immediate halt of all military actions."
"Direct negotiations between Baku and Stepanakert are the only way to achieve progress on the relations between the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and Azerbaijan and the EU has always been ready to support this process," the document says.
It says that "Baku's offensive seriously undermines the ongoing peace negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia." European MPs "urge the President of Azerbaijan to accept recent calls of the Armenian Prime Minister for the resumption of talks at the highest level."
On September 19, tensions flared up again in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku announced it was launching what it described as "local anti-terrorist measures" and demanded the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the region. Yerevan, in turn, said there were no Armenian forces in Karabakh, calling what was happening "an act of large-scale aggression." Residents of the Armenian capital took to the streets to protest outside the Armenian government building, blaming the country’s leadership and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for the situation.