Armenia denounces the death of about 50 soldiers in clashes with Azerbaijan

Sep. 13 () –

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinián, has denounced this Tuesday the death of about 50 soldiers in the clashes registered during the early hours of Tuesday with the Azerbaijani Army at various points on the common border, in a new upsurge in hostilities.

“The Azeri Armed Forces have launched an attack against Armenia from four directions and another two or three directions were added later,” he said in an appearance before Parliament in which he estimated the number of soldiers killed in combat at 49, according to picked up the Armenian news agency Armenpress.

Thus, he has stated that “Azerbaijan is trying to present these actions in a misleading way as a response to some kind of provocation.” “We have to say that it is an absolute lie and that it is false information,” she added, before emphasizing that there has been no provocation in the area.

Pashinián has also pointed out that “the intensity of the fighting has decreased”, although he has emphasized that “the Azeri attacks continue in one or two directions”. “The Ministry of Defense and the Army General Staff are assessing the situation, analyzing the losses and the information will be officially published once it is clarified,” he stated.

On the other hand, he confirmed that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is holding a session of its Permanent Council following the request for support made by Armenia after the Azeri attack. “We have made an appeal to Russia based on the 1997 friendship treaty and we will demand that the United Nations Security Council discuss the situation urgently,” he stressed.

Azerbaijan has described the news about the Azeri intervention in Armenian territory as “no more than nonsense” and has stressed that “the only aggressor and occupier State in the region is the Republic of Armenia”. He also stressed that “the main objective of regular artillery attacks by Armenia against positions of the Azeri Army is to postpone the signing of a peace treaty and the construction and restoration work in the liberated territories,” said the Azeri Defense Ministry.

Armenia and Azerbaijan staged a confrontation in 2020 to take control of Nagorno Karabakh, a territory with a majority Armenian population that has been a focus of conflict since it decided to separate in 1988 from the Azerbaijan region integrated into the Soviet Union.

Hostilities between the two countries lasted for six weeks and left thousands dead. They finally ceased when the two countries reached a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement, allowing Russian peacekeepers to settle in Nagorno-Karabakh for a period of five years.