Armenia and Azerbaijan accuse each other of violating truce after deadly border clashes

First modification: 09/14/2022 – 17:29

At least 105 Armenian soldiers were killed, Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian announced on Wednesday, a much higher balance than the initial 49 soldiers provided on Tuesday.

Azerbaijan, which counted 50 dead soldiers on its side, proposed Wednesday to return the bodies of 100 Armenian soldiers to Yerevan while calling for a ceasefire.

Russia, which considers the Caucasus its backyard, had announced on Tuesday the negotiation of a truce after the clashes, but both sides accused each other of having violated it shortly after.

Tuesday’s escalation comes at a time when Russia, Yerevan’s closest ally, is busy invading Ukraine.

On Wednesday, the Armenian Defense Ministry said “the enemy has relaunched its attack using artillery, mortars and large-caliber firearms in the direction of Jermuk and Verin Shorzha” on the border.

“It was impossible to stay in our houses, because there was already serious shelling (…). We thought that our houses were going to collapse,” Vardanush Vardanian, 66, a resident of the Armenian village of Sotk, located near the border with Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry had accused the Armenian forces of “violating the ceasefire (…) and shelling Azerbaijani positions near Kalbayar and Lachin with mortars and artillery”, accusations denied by Yerevan.

“No war, no peace”

On Tuesday, Armenia asked world leaders for help. The European Union, the United States, France, Russia, Iran and Turkey expressed concern about the escalation and called for an end to hostilities.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus, have fought two wars in the last three decades for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The six weeks of fighting in the fall of 2020 left more than 6,500 dead and ended with a fragile Russian-brokered ceasefire, which analyst Gela Valadze of the Georgian Center for Strategic Analysis describes as a state of “no war, no war.” peace”.

Under that agreement, Armenia ceded parts of that territory that it had controlled for decades. Ethnic Armenian separatists from Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict cost an estimated 30,000 lives.

“Despite the clear reaction of the international community on the situation, the political and military leadership of Azerbaijan is in fact continuing its acts of aggression against the sovereign territory of Armenia, targeting military and civilian infrastructure,” he added.

This conflict has altered the balance of forces in the region given the growing international isolation of Russia, which sent thousands of peacekeeping troops to the area after the 2020 war.

Since then, it is the European Union (EU) that has led the normalization process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which includes negotiations for peace, the delimitation of borders and the reopening of transport connections.

Vasadze believes the latest escalation “has undone EU-led efforts to bring Baku and Yerevan closer to a peace deal.”

“The Brussels agreements are practically annulled,” he says. In addition, the clashes “have further radicalized public opinion in both countries.”

The German government on Wednesday called on both countries to end the conflict that threatens the security of the entire “region.

Visiting Kazakhstan, Pope Francis said he was “concerned” about the violence in the Caucasus and called for “praying that peaceful confrontation and harmony prevail over disputes in these territories.”

In Yerevan, emotions ran high among relatives of wounded Armenian soldiers who gathered outside a military hospital on Tuesday night.

“We have to fight for our lands, for our homeland and for our country. Victory will be ours. If not today, it will be tomorrow. We are indestructible,” Sokrat Khachaturyan, 65, told AFP.

Economist Arman Mkhitaryan said that “we must expect a new war seeing the accumulation of Azerbaijani (soldiers)” on the border.