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The Armenian Defense Ministry accused Azerbaijani forces of launching combat drones in the direction of the Armenian resort city of Jermuk overnight and renewing artillery and mortar shelling in the morning. For its part, Azerbaijan blamed Armenian forces for initiating the provocations. The international community is mobilized to avoid a conflict of greater proportions in the South Caucasus.
New accusations from both sides of the border and an increase in the number of deceased uniformed personnel. This Wednesday, September 14, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian assured that at least 105 nationals have died since the fighting broke out this week. For its part, Azerbaijan has reported 50 casualties and promised to unilaterally hand over the bodies of up to 100 Armenian soldiers.
The two former Soviet countries have been locked in a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed region part of Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the separatist war ended in 1994.
In 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured large swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week war in which more than 6,600 people lost their lives.
Since then, a peace agreement negotiated by Russia had been maintained, which, in addition, deployed around 2,000 soldiers in the region to serve as peacekeepers and guarantee the agreement.
With the bombings of this Tuesday, which were cataloged as the deadliest since 2020, Russia reacted quickly to negotiate the end of hostilities and although the international community also urged calm, the two parties exchanged blame for the violations of the ceasefire .
“Despite calls from the international community and the ceasefire agreement reached, the Armenian armed forces continue to attack and provoke on the state border using artillery and other heavy weapons,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Armenian prime minister told Parliament that his “small landlocked country” had requested help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the military alliance that unites six former Soviet republics and is led by Russia. , to restore its territorial integrity after the attacks of the neighboring country.
“If we say that Azerbaijan has carried out aggression against Armenia, it means that they have managed to establish control over some territories,” Pashinian said, according to the TASS news agency.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and other CSTO members discussed the situation in a call Tuesday night in which they agreed to send a mission of senior security alliance officials to the area, in a bid by Moscow to maintain a friendly relationship with both nations, since while maintaining strong economic and security ties with Armenia, which is home to a Russian military base, and also developing close cooperation with Azerbaijan, an oil-rich country.
The international community calls for peace
The outbreak in the South Caucasus has set off alarms in the United States, Russia, the European Union and France. The latter assured that he will bring the issue of tension between the two ex-Soviet nations to the Security Council table.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that Russia could “stir the pot” or use its influence to help “calm the waters.”
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, in a call with her counterparts from both countries, called for the “end of strikes against Armenian territory.”
Meanwhile, the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a country in which there have been demonstrations in favor of Azerbaijan, assured that Armenia’s attitude was “unacceptable” and that it would bring “consequences”.
“We consider that the situation that has occurred due to the violation of the agreement by Armenia, reached after the war (in 2020) that resulted in the victory of Azerbaijan, is unacceptable. This attitude, of course, will have consequences for the side Armenia, which not only fails to comply with the terms of the signed agreement, but also constantly shows an aggressive attitude,” the Turkish leader said.
The special representative of the European Union (EU), Toivo Klaar, announced that he would be in the South Caucasus this Wednesday to facilitate dialogue. While Vladimir Putin plans to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Friday, the Armenian prime minister has withdrawn from the CSTO-hosted summit due to recent hostilities.
Several world leaders have assured that the clashes could escalate into a war and become a second major conflict between the former Soviet republics after Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine.
With EFE, Reuters and AP
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