10:46,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, ARMENPRESS. The National Center of Crisis Management received a bomb threat targeting the Yerevan metro stations around 10:05, August 16.
K9 units and bomb squads of the Ministry of Emergency Situations were dispatched to the stations.
The metro said that all stations were shut down until the search is completed.
17:15,
YEREVAN, 16 AUGUST, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 16 August, USD exchange rate down by 0.10 drams to 406.09 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 2.90 drams to 411.41 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.02 drams to 6.62 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 2.80 drams to 488.16 drams.
The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.
Gold price down by 208.13 drams to 23195.46 drams. Silver price up by 0.78 drams to 265.43 drams. Platinum price stood at 16414.1 drams.
19:17,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, ARMENPRESS. By the decision of Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, mourning was declared on August 17-18, 2022 in memory of the citizens who died as a result of the fire and explosion that occurred at “Surmalu” shopping center, ARMENPRESS reports the Prime Minister’s decision is posted on the website.
ArmInfo.A delegation of Iranian military specialists visited the so-called “liberated territories of Azerbaijan”, the Turan agency reports, with reference to today’s message from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which organized this trip.
It is noted that on Tuesday members of the delegation, which also included employees of the Iranian embassy in Baku, visited the cities of Barda and Terter. There they got acquainted with the consequences of the bombing of these cities during the Second Karabakh War.
The trip of the Iranian delegation will last until August 20.
The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that following the results of the fighting on August 3, Azerbaijan occupied the Sarybaba height in the Shusha District and Gyrkhgyz height in the Khodjaly District. According to analysts, that gave Azerbaijan a tactical advantage. On August 6, Azerbaijan also announced the capture of the strategic height of Buzdukh (Buzukh).
The control over the Buzdukh height creates a springboard for new military operations in Karabakh, if such a need arises, Baku analysts say. “Today, the Azerbaijani army occupies dominant positions almost along the entire perimeter of Karabakh,” noted Telman Abilov, the head of the “Military Officers” NGO.
The control over the Gyrkhgyz height allows the Azerbaijani army strengthening the security of the city of Shusha and the Azerbaijani villages of the Shusha District when the forced migrants return there, expert Azad Isazade believes. The occupation of the heights of Sarybaba and Gyrkhgyz allowed Azerbaijan significantly strengthening control over the Lachin corridor, emphasizes Shakhin Gadjiev, an observer for the “Turan” agency.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on at 06:01 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
See earlier reports:
Russian MFA rejects criticism of peacekeepers in Karabakh conflict zone, Azerbaijan announces completion of road bypassing Lachin, Wording of agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh gives rise to conflict escalation.
Source: Caucasian Knot
Source:
© Caucasian Knot
Friday,
Aliyev Again Rules Out Status For Karabakh Armenians
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (file photo).
Speaking on national television on Friday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
again ruled out any status for ethnic Armenians living in Karabakh, saying that
they will enjoy the same rights as other citizens of Azerbaijan.
Aliyev also reasserted Baku’s right to conduct military operations in Karabakh
similar to the one its armed forces conducted in early August along the Lachin
corridor with the use of drones, mortars and grenade launchers.
Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said two ethnic Armenian
soldiers were killed and 19 others were wounded in the August 3 attack by
Azerbaijani forces that prompted calls from the international community for
de-escalation in the volatile region.
Azerbaijan claimed it had taken retributive action for the killing of an
Azerbaijani servicemen by “Armenian terrorists.”
“Armenians living in Karabakh should take the right steps. They must understand
that their future depends on their integration into Azerbaijani society. We live
in reality. From the geographical, economic and historical points of view
Karabakh is an inseparable part of Azerbaijan,” Aliyev told AzTV.
The Azerbaijani leader claimed that those who populistically talk about some
status or independence for Armenians in Karabakh are “the main enemies of the
Armenian people.”
“Because the Armenians living in Karabakh will not have any status, independence
or advantages. They will live like all citizens of Azerbaijan. Their rights will
be protected the way the rights of Azerbaijani citizens and peoples living [in
Azerbaijan] are protected,” Aliyev said.
In March, Azerbaijan presented Armenia with five elements which it wants to be
at the heart of a peace treaty to be signed by the two South Caucasus nations
that fought a bloody six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020.
The elements include a mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity.
The Armenian government, in principle, agreed to the elements, but said they
should be complemented by other issues relating to the future status of
Nagorno-Karabakh and the security of its population.
In the interview to national television Aliyev also claimed that hundreds of
Armenian soldiers were withdrawn from Karabakh after Azerbaijan’s military
operation on August 3. He stressed that Azerbaijan wants a full withdrawal of
Armenian armed units from Karabakh. “It is Armenia’s commitment. It is reflected
in the act of surrender signed by Armenia on November 10, 2020,” Aliyev claimed.
Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan on August 4, Armenian Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian stressed that there was no serviceman of the Republic
of Armenia in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Armenian side, however, does not share the view that the Moscow-brokered
ceasefire that provided for the deployment of about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers
in the region also stipulates that local Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should
disarm.
In his interview Aliyev also confirmed that the few remaining Armenian residents
of the town of Lachin and the villages of Sus and Zabux (Aghavno) situated along
the Lachin corridor will leave by the end of the month as a new route for the
corridor linking Karabakh with Armenia is due to be put into use.
Aliyev claimed that Armenians lived in the villages illegally after their
occupation by ethnic Armenian forces in the early 1990s and, therefore, he
warned that those Armenians who will choose to stay might be treated like war
criminals under the Geneva conventions.
“The occupying country cannot carry out illegal settlement of the occupied
lands. This is a war crime. Perhaps the Armenians from Syria and Lebanon living
there do not know this, but the leadership of Armenia is well aware of that. We
hear news coming from there that someone says they will stay and will not leave.
It is their business, but they are war criminals. They should not test our
patience. Let them leave by their own will, we don’t care where they go,” the
Azerbaijani president said.
ICG: Baku Pursues Three Goals It Hopes Will Pressure Armenia To Capitulate In
Negotiations
• Heghine Buniatian
Azerbaijani military trucks are moving along the Lachin corridor near
Nagorno-Karabakh in the presence of Russian peacekeepers deployed there as part
of the Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia
(file photo).
By escalating the situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijan pursues
three goals that it wants to achieve either by force or the threat of force,
which it hopes will pressure Armenia to capitulate in negotiations, an
international think tank says in its latest report on the region.
In its report titled “Warding Off Renewed War in Nagorno-Karabakh” that was
published this week the International Crisis Group (ICG) goes on to list what it
views as these three goals that have to do with the overland connection between
Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia known as the Lachin corridor, the withdrawal of
Armenian troops from the region as well as a treaty with Armenia to end the
conflict that would be to Azerbaijan’s advantage.
The report quotes an unnamed Azerbaijani official as saying that “the Armenian
side is trying to delay the commissioning of the new road this year, thereby
purposely delaying the handover of the city of Lachin and a number of villages
to Azerbaijan.”
Azerbaijan’s second grievance, according to ICG experts, relates to what Baku
says is Armenia’s failure to withdraw forces from Nagorno-Karabakh, as the
ceasefire says it must do. “Yerevan says it has done so. The issue, it says, is
Azerbaijan’s concern that Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto authorities retain an
armed force. Baku argues that this force is illegal, demanding that Russian
peacekeepers disarm it, while Armenia and the de facto authorities say its
disarmament was never part of the ceasefire deal,” the report says.
“Baku seized upon comments Armen Grigoryan, Armenia’s Security Council
secretary, made in an interview in mid-July that Armenia would withdraw forces
by September as evidence of its claims. Yerevan has since furiously tried to
walk back words it says were taken out of context,” writes the ICG, noting that
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reiterated on August 4 that all Armenian
armed forces have left Nagorno-Karabakh.
An Azerbaijani military official told the ICG that Baku will press ahead with
operations until the area is fully demilitarized.
The report says that, thirdly, Baku appears keen to proceed to talks over a
treaty that it hopes will end the conflict to its advantage. Although in April
the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in Brussels declared their readiness to
start talks on such an agreement, Azerbaijan has voiced frustration that
subsequent diplomacy has moved too slowly, the authors of the report note.
An Azerbaijani official alleged that Armenian officials are purposely delaying
talks. “They think that, by prolonging the negotiations, they can wait for the
geopolitical situation to change in their favor,” the official quoted by the ICG
said.
For their part, officials in Yerevan blame Baku, saying it is Azerbaijani
officials that are “dragging their feet in EU-mediated talks and hoping to take
advantage of the world’s focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine,” the authors of the
report say.
“From a military standpoint, Armenia and de facto authorities in
Nagorno-Karabakh view Baku’s seizure of Farukh (Parukh) in March, as well as
positions held by the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh forces near the Lachin corridor
and along the front lines in the entity’s north and north west, as an attempt to
gain high ground and, thus, strategic advantage,” the ICG notes.
The authors of the report wonder whether Russian peacekeepers can deter
Azerbaijan and enforce the ceasefire, noting that since early May, they have
been conducting daily patrols on Sarybaba heights close to the Lachin corridor.
“The patrols stopped a couple of days before the Azerbaijani advances, however,
for reasons that are unclear,” the report says.
A senior de facto official in Stepanakert quoted by the ICG said the
peacekeepers often feel powerless. “Everyone understands that Russia is weaker
than ever before in the international arena,” the de facto representative said,
according to the report.
“The clashes have once again highlighted the challenges faced by the Russian
peacekeeping mission without a clear mandate for how it can engage beyond its
monitoring role – a problem made worse by Russia’s loss of standing following
its invasion of Ukraine,” the ICG writes.
In a 2021 report, the ICG called on the sides to hold talks on clarifying the
peacekeepers’ role. “They appear increasingly unlikely to do so, particularly
amid increasing criticism of the mission by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Such
frustration risks undermining the peacekeepers’ ability to carry out their
existing mandate of observing the ceasefire in the conflict zone. If and when
the time becomes ripe, international mediators must urge the sides to revisit
this issue, which will likely come to a head in any case in 2025 when Baku and
Yerevan must give their assent to the mission’s continuation,” the report says.
According to ICG experts, “most importantly, Western capitals and Moscow should
try to ensure that their standoff over Ukraine does not bleed into mediation
efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
“Even distracted, Moscow pays more attention to Armenia and Azerbaijan than does
Brussels or Washington. It remains the only country that has been willing to
dispatch forces to the region and it remains a key trade partner of both
countries. Working with Moscow, distasteful as it may be in European capitals,
improves the odds of bringing peace to the South Caucasus,” the ICG says.
The group’s experts conclude that “concerted diplomacy by all outside actors
might yet avert a return to war and keep nascent talks about an eventual peace
settlement and new trade routes on track.”
Iran Appoints Consul In Southern Armenian Town
• Naira Nalbandian
A general view of the town of Kapan in southern Armenia (file photo).
Iran has appointed a consul general to the town of Kapan in southern Armenia,
the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Yerevan told the Armenian state-run Armenpress
news agency.
Armenian news website News.am, quoting Robert Beglarian, an ethnic Armenian
lawmaker in Iran’s parliament, reported on August 11 that the appointed consul
general, Abedin Varamin, had already taken office and held meetings with
officials in Yerevan.
Tehran made the decision to open a consulate general in Kapan, a strategic town
in Armenia’s Syunik province bordering Iran, last December. Officially the
consulate is likely to open later this year.
Shirak Torosian, a pro-government lawmaker who is a member of the Armenia-Iran
friendship group in the Armenian parliament, described the decision as “another
clear message about Tehran’s red lines in the region.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reassured Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian in an August 11 phone call about his country’s opposition to any
attempt to alter borders in the region.
The reassurance came amid continued statements from Baku that Armenia must
provide Azerbaijan with an extraterritorial land corridor via Syunik to its
western Nakhichevan exclave under the terms of the Russia-brokered ceasefire
that put an end to a deadly six-week Armenian-Azerbaijani war over
Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020.
Armenia publicly supports the idea of unblocking transport links in the region,
but insists that it should maintain sovereignty over all transit roads in its
territory, including in Syunik.
“In Iran’s case it is also a matter of national security,” Torosian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday.
“Opening a consulate general in Kapan means that they consider Syunik to be an
important region for Iran in terms of protecting the interests of Iranian
citizens and protecting the interests of the Iranian state in general,” he added.
The Armenian lawmaker said that Iran’s consulate general in Kapan also means
that Tehran’s repeated statements against geopolitical changes in the region
“now become visible.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against attempts to block
Armenia’s border with his country when he held separate meetings with Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tehran
last month.
Under the 2020 ceasefire agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia, which protects
Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey, is to oversee the security of the
transport links between Azerbaijan and its western exclave passing through
Armenian territory.
Images of Russian checkpoints set up along several roads in Syunik that appeared
on the Internet earlier this week fueled speculations among Armenians about an
imminent deal on the transport corridor. But Russia’s Federal Security Service,
which is in charge of the protection of Armenia’s state frontier, said that the
stepped-up security measures were due to increased drug trafficking and other
illegal cross-border activities in the area.
Four Killed In Traffic Collision In Karabakh Involving Russian Peacekeepers’
Driver
The scene of the car crash on the Stepanakert-Askeran highway, Nagorno-Karabakh,
.
Four people have been killed in a major traffic collision in Nagorno-Karabakh
where a vehicle operated by a driver of the Russian peacekeeping contingent
deployed in the region collided with another car.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian authorities said the apparent accident
occurred along the Stepanakert-Askeran highway on Friday morning.
They said the 30-year-old driver of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, who was
identified only by his initials, I. Y., drove a full-size SUV, Haval H9, that
collided with a compact Lada sedan VAZ-2107.
The Lada’s driver, who was identified by the local police as a 26-year-old
resident of the village of Sarushen in Nagorno-Karabakh’s Askeran district,
reportedly suffered bone fractures and bruising of the right lung and was taken
to hospital, while his four passengers – all women from the same district aged
from 50 to 56 – were killed on the spot.
No information about the condition of the Haval H9 driver was made available
immediately.
Local investigators are working on the scene, Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities
said.
Russia deploys nearly 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh after brokering a
ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in November 2020 to end a deadly
six-week war over the region.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2022 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
First published in the Aug. 6 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
Although the documentary “Motherland” is largely centered around events from two years ago, it was prescient that it screened this week at the Glendale Laemmle Theatre.
“Motherland,” directed by journalist Vic Gerami, chronicles the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, but as Gerami pointed out during the Thursday screening, it’s a conflict that hasn’t yet ended. Hostilities flared up again this week, as Azerbaijani forces reportedly attacked Artsakh Defense Force troops in violation of the ceasefire and territorial concessions.
Still, Gerami — an Armenian American activist who hosts “The Blunt Post with Vic” on KPFK 90.7-FM — expressed during the screening that, in a theater full of elected officials, scholars and allies, there may yet be hope for the Armenian cause.
“This is such a dynamic room and it gives us hope,” he said following the film, “because seeing some of the things I’ve seen, you have to have hope, because otherwise you just go crazy.”
Clocking in at just over two hours, “Motherland” explores the Armenian history of Artsakh in the context of Russian and Soviet imperialism and draws a link from the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire and the wars Azerbaijan waged against the breakaway Artsakh Republic — which, for nearly a century, had been under Azeri administration.
After Artsakh Armenians declared independence and successfully defended themselves in the 1990s, the film contends that the hereditary dictatorship in Baku — currently led by Ilham Aliyev — cultivated an Azeri national identity of dominating their Armenian neighbors and consolidated control of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas resources to amass personal fortunes, buy political goodwill across the globe and construct a technologically sophisticated military.
Broadly, “Motherland” advances a narrative that Azerbaijan, through political maneuvering and strategic donations, began laundering a positive global image in 2011 with some sort of national identity campaign eyed for 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic and American presidential election, Gerami contends, provided ample distraction for Baku to launch its offensive, which killed more than 5,000 Armenians. The film takes aim across the political spectrum — from Republican President Donald Trump for enabling Aliyev, Democratic President Joe Biden for opening up arms sales to Baku and ostensibly progressive organizations like Amnesty International for “both-sidesing” the conflict with false-equivalencies.
The film, edited by Chris Damadyan, slickly weaves history and present events together with archival and crowd-sourced footage, crisp graphics and charts and interviews often filmed by producer Henrick Vartanian.
Interviewees included a number of American politicians — chief among them U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff of Burbank, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone — as well as foreign leaders and academics.
The crew also traveled to Armenia and Artsakh to record the testimonies of refugees and veterans of the wars.
“I caught myself looking up, going like ‘What did he just say?’” Vartanian said of filming those veterans. “That was quite an emotional experience to hear from the soldiers.”
The documentary also necessarily includes the blurred-out cellphone videos taken during the 2020 war that depict Azerbaijani soldiers committing atrocities against Armenian soldiers and civilians — executions, scalpings, beheadings — to illustrate what they say the world as effectively looked away from.
Damadyan recalled that, during the editing process, a source had compiled and provided an archive of all the publicly available videos from social media.
“Just going through that, I don’t know how many times I had to walk away from the computer and dry my eyes and wash my face and gather myself back up,” Damadyan said.
Mayor Ardy Kassakhian, who hosted a question-and-answer session with the film’s creators after the screening, said that he’s watched every documentary about Artsakh and hailed “Motherland” as the “most encyclopedic” of them.
“You put literally everything that we try to explain to people into this film,” Kassakhian told the filmmakers. “You got very rare interviews with individuals that no one else has gotten interviews with.”
Gerami admitted that the first cut of the film ran in at more than three hours and that a lot of “painful cuts” were required to bring it down to feature length. During the Q&A, Gerami said he strove to avoid wading into Yerevan politics because, at the end of the day, he asserts it is a story about the genocidal aspirations of two hostile neighbors and how the world has placated them.
“At the core of this film, it’s about freedom, the right to self-determination and human rights. It’s universal, and I was not going to muddy it getting into the politics,” Gerami said. “I made this film for non-Armenians. We don’t want to preach to the choir, although I think a lot of Armenians can benefit from watching this, too.”
This week’s screening — sponsored by Kassakhian, Assemblywoman Laura Friedman and state Sen. Anthony Portantino — was just the second, and Gerami is currently seeking a distributor for the documentary.
He is also aiming to host additional screenings, as local as Glendale Community College and as widely as Congress. Gerami noted that it was important to bring the film to Glendale, no less to a theater adjacent to Artsakh Avenue.
While reflecting on the filming, Vartanian noted that this was his first trip to his ancestral home, an experience he’ll never forget.
“The sun was different. The light was different, the color, everything,” Vartanian recalled. “The fact that the signs were all in Armenian, I kept giggling. ‘I can read that. I know what it means.’”
At this, Kassakhian quipped, “They have that on Colorado Boulevard, too.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan trade blame for the recent clashes that violated a ceasefire over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
A ceasefire has been in force in the disputed South Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh since 2020. The already fragile agreement was violated earlier this month, with the conflicting parties – Armenia and Azerbaijan – trading blame for the recent deadly clashes.
Since Azerbaijan regained control over much of the region through the 2020 war, Nagorno-Karabakh is connected to Armenia only via the so-called Lachin corridor.
Elmar Mustafayev, a political analyst and a Jean Monnet module coordinator at Khazar University, told Al Jazeera that Armenia recently attempted to break the terms of the trilateral agreement signed by leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia that ended the 44-day war in November 2020.
“An Azerbaijani soldier was killed [earlier this month] as a result of a ceasefire violation by Armenian-backed forces. In response to provocations, Azerbaijan carried out tit-for-tat measures,” he said.
According to Azerbaijan, fire was opened on its military position in the district of Lachin, the very buffer zone between the Armenian border and Nagorno-Karabakh.
A soldier was reportedly killed in the process, prompting a military operation by Azerbaijan dubbed “Revenge”.
“The provisions of the trilateral agreement remain unfulfilled by Armenia,” Mustafayev said.
“The agreement envisaged the deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces in parallel with the withdrawal of Armenia’s forces as well as the disarmament of local illegal armed groups,” he said. “However, over the one year and eight months since the conclusion of the trilateral agreement, Armenia failed to meet the commitments on withdrawal and disarmament.”
He also said that another unfulfilled provision of the Russia-brokered deal is the construction of a new road connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.
“The new corridor to replace the Lachin corridor, thus enabling Azerbaijan to take over the control of Lachin city, remains unfinished business. Although Azerbaijan has almost finalised the works on building the alternative corridor, the construction works on the Armenian part have not even started,” Mustafayev said.
“Similarly, Armenia acts in bad faith in providing the Zangezur corridor between Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, a landlocked exclave of Azerbaijan, in the same fashion Azerbaijan provides the corridor between Armenia and Karabakh,” he said.
However, Nagorno-Karabakh authorities accused Azerbaijan of violating an agreed ceasefire. Two pro-Armenian separatists were killed and 14 others injured in an Azerbaijani drone strike.
Khatchig Mouradian, lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies at Columbia University, told Al Jazeera that, “Yerevan is paralysed by defeat and failure in leadership, while Baku is capitalising on geopolitical tailwinds.
“It’s attacking because it can. In this calculus, it matters little that Armenia has announced it will complete the withdrawal of its forces by September, that it has begun the construction of the alternative road and that it is in no position to trigger Azerbaijan’s ire,” he said.
The Armenian foreign ministry called on the international community to stop Azerbaijan’s “aggressive actions”.
Russia also accused Azerbaijan of breaking the ceasefire. The Russian defence ministry announced “measures to stabilise the situation”.
In the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia is supported by Russia while Azerbaijan is backed by Turkey.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin served as the godfather of the ceasefire agreement that ended the 40-day war, but Russian peacekeepers seem to be struggling to uphold even a negative peace,” Mouradian said.
“The war on Ukraine is casting a shadow on Nagorno-Karabakh, too. Russia’s announcement on August 3 that Azerbaijan was the side that violated the ceasefire may have been an implicit warning against testing Moscow’s ability to wage war in one place and keep the peace in another,” he said.
EU-brokered peace talks
The latest incidents could complicate the European Union-brokered peace talks that have been continuing between Azerbaijan and Armenia for several months.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev met in Brussels in April and May.
On Wednesday, the EU called on both sides to stop fighting immediately and return to the negotiating table.
However, the chances of a peace treaty between the two sides remain rather slim, unless the status quo changes.
“President Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Prime Minister Pashinyan in their meeting brokered by European Council President Charles Michel, have agreed to set up a bilateral border demarcation commission and work on a peace agreement,” Mustafayev said.
“The agreement came after the proposal of Azerbaijan based on five main conditions made earlier in March. But facing strong pressure from opposition parties and the diaspora against reconciliation, Armenian officials issue contradictory statements on peace with Azerbaijan,” he added.
“Therefore, for the time being, it is not clear how long it will take to see the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
US ‘deeply concerned’
Meanwhile, the United States was also “deeply concerned” about the new escalation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. State Department spokesman Ned Price urged “immediate steps” to ease tensions.
Currently, the chances of yet another war seem more plausible than a peace treaty, according to Mouradian.
“The likelihood of renewed war in Nagorno-Karabakh is high, and Russia seems to be the only actor capable of preventing it. While it is true that the United States and Europe are invested in the region’s stability, there is little that over-the-horizon peacekeeping can deliver,” he said.
The conflict itself is more than 30 years old. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a dispute broke out over Nagorno-Karabakh, which unilaterally declared its independence.
With the declaration of independence of Armenia and Azerbaijan, both states claimed the approximately 12,000 square kilometres (4,633 square miles) of area for themselves.
However, according to international law, the area inhabited mainly by Armenians belongs to Azerbaijan.
In 1992, war broke out over the area, killing about 30,000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands over the next two years. The war ended in 1994 – provisionally with a victory for Armenia.
In 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured large areas of the region. At least 6,500 people died in the fighting, which lasted about six weeks.
Heavy fighting ended with the signing of a ceasefire in November 2020, controlled by Russia, but broken repeatedly since it was signed.
15:58, 9 August 2022
YEREVAN, AUGUST 9, ARMENPRESS. The United States expresses its deep concern over the reports of intensive fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh, including casualties and the loss of life, the Chargé d’Affaires of the United States Mission to the OSCE Courtney Austrian said in a statement to the Special Permanent Council in Vienna.
“The United States expresses its deep concern over the reports of intensive fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh, including casualties and the loss of life. We are closely following the situation and urge immediate steps to reduce tensions and avoid further escalation.
As we have said many times at the Permanent Council, the United States emphasizes the importance of a negotiated, comprehensive, and sustainable settlement of all remaining issues related to or resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Last week, Secretary Blinken personally engaged Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Aliyev to urge de-escalation and direct contacts to reduce tensions. The United States is ready to engage bilaterally, with like-minded partners, and through our role as an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair to facilitate dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan and help achieve a long-term political settlement to the conflict,” Austrian said.