ARMENIA: Nearly 50 of Armenia’s troops have reportedly been killed during the country’s bloodiest fighting with Azerbaijan since their conflict two years ago. However, Russia asserts that it was successful in convincing the old rivals to rapidly accept a truce.
The deepening of long-standing antagonism between the south Caucasus countries has stoked fears of the post-Soviet world devolving into a second full-fledged conflict in addition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In the early hours of Tuesday, Armenia said that numerous towns close to the Azerbaijani border, including Jermuk, Goris, and Kapan, were being shelled. It claimed that this was in retaliation for what it called a “large-scale provocation” by Azerbaijan.
According to Baku, Armenia assaulted it
Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, claimed that Azerbaijan had attacked Armenian towns because it refused to negotiate the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that is inside Azerbaijan but is primarily inhabited by Armenians.
According to Russian media, Pashinyan stated in an address to the parliament that “the intensity of hostilities has diminished but attacks on one or two fronts from Azerbaijan continue.”
Azerbaijan claimed that Armenia attacked its military posts while conducting intelligence operations along the border and transporting weaponry. A ceasefire deal was reportedly broken nearly immediately after it was put into effect early on Tuesday, according to Azeri media.
No Military Solution
Calls for restraint were made to Baku and Yerevan by both Russia and the United States.
There cannot be a military solution to the crisis, as the United States has often stated. A statement was released by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “We call for a swift cessation of all military hostilities.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan’s crisis “should be handled only through political and diplomatic channels,” the Russian foreign ministry declared in a statement.
In 2020, Russia, which has a military station in Armenia, sent thousands of troops to the region as part of an agreement to end six weeks of war during which Azerbaijan made significant territorial advances in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.
Through the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which met on Tuesday to examine the issue, Moscow is a significant power broker in the region and an ally of Yerevan. Azerbaijan is supported by Turkey.
On Tuesday morning, the defence ministers of Russia and Armenia spoke and decided to take action to calm the situation at the border. Mevlut Cavusoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey, called on Armenia to “stop its provocations” in a conversation with Jeyhun Bayramov, his counterpart from Azerbaijan.
The European Council’s Charles Michel pleaded with Pashinyan to stop the situation from getting worse. Michel met with Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan last month in Brussels to discuss rapprochement efforts, humanitarian concerns, and the potential for a Nagorno-Karabakh peace accord.
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