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    Categories: 2020

Tbilisi: Georgia concerned with resumption of hostilities between Armenia, Azerbaijan

Agenda, Georgia
Sept 27 2020
Georgia concerned with resumption of hostilities between Armenia, Azerbaijan
Agenda.ge, 27 Sep 2020 – 14:10, Tbilisi,Georgia

Georgian officials are concerned with the recent reports of resumed hostilities between the two neighbouring countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Calling for peace in the region, President Salome Zurabishvili has tweeted:

Zurabishvili, who met with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov a couple of days ago in Tbilisi, has then noted that Georgia is ready ‘to serve as a platform to contribute for regional peace and stability’.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry is also following the developments between Armenia and Azerbaijan 'with concern’.

We hope that a ceasefire agreement will be reached, the sides will start negotiating and avoid more large-scale military activities that endanger the security of the entire region”, the Georgian Foreign Ministry said.

Georgia also calls on the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and the rest of the international community to spare no efforts to ensure the suspension of the confrontation on the ground and resumption of peace talks between the sides.

Georgia is ready to contribute to de-escalation [of the process] and to help establish the peace in the region”, the Foreign Ministry announced.

While Armenia and Azerbaijan trade accusations for the recent confrontation on the border, both sides have reported civilian deaths. BBC reports that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan said Azerbaijan had launched an air and artillery attack, while Azerbaijan said it was responding to shelling along the whole front.

  • Georgian gov’t denies weapons entered Armenia via Georgia, calls Azerbaijan ‘a strategic partner’

Mewnahile, Azerbaijani new agency Trend.az cited President Ilham Aliyev as saying that ‘Armenian armed forced opened fire on our settlements, as well as our military positions, from several directions this morning, using various types of weaponry, including heavy artillery’.

Aliyev claimed that ‘as a result of the enemy fire, there are casualties among the civilian population and our servicemen. Some people have been wounded’.

  • Georgia concerned by armed confrontation on Azerbaijan-Armenia border

On his part, Nikol Pashinyan has announced that the country is declaring martial law and general mobilisation.

Armenian News.am agency has released Armenian Defence Ministry video footage of the hostilities:

Armenia and Azerbaijan are technically at war over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region of Azerbaijan that was seized by Armenia-backed separatists who declared independence amid a 1988-1994 conflict that killed at least 30,000 people and forced many others to become refugees and IDPs.

Manouk Vasilian: