() — Despite the previous claims of having reached a ceasefireFighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia continued on Wednesday, a day after nearly 100 soldiers were killed in clashes, according to the Baku and Yerevan defense ministries.
Russia suggested it had brokered a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in a statement Tuesday, but it was short-lived.
The Russian-brokered ceasefire was broken “almost immediately,” according to US National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby.
The Armenian Ministry of Defense accused on Wednesday Azerbaijan from attacking again, claiming that artillery, mortars and “large-caliber firearms” had been fired at three Armenian cities, including Jermuk, near the border between the two countries.
Supporters of the Armenian opposition and relatives of military personnel injured in the border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan gather in front of Parliament to call for the resignation of the Armenian Prime Minister, in Yerevan on September 13, 2022.
In a series of tweets, the Ministry insisted that “all responsibility” for the current clashes and any future events rests with Azerbaijan. The Armenian government said on Tuesday that at least 49 Armenian service members had been killed in action.
Azerbaijan, for its part, tweeted on Wednesday that some of its military units were also coming under artillery fire. In a statement, its Defense Ministry said a criminal case had been opened in the case of two civilians injured as a result of the ongoing conflict with Armenia.
“Two civilians were injured as a result of a large-scale provocation committed on the night of September 12 by the Armenian armed forces,” He said the notice. “The facts are currently being investigated.”
Fifty Azerbaijani military personnel were killed in deadly clashes on Tuesday, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement. Among them were 42 members of the Azerbaijani Army and eight members of the State Border Service, it said.
An ambulance moves on a street near a military hospital in Yerevan, Armenia, following overnight border clashes on September 13, 2022.
If the clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan continue, they could jeopardize key oil and gas pipelines, exacerbating energy supply problems already interrupted by the war in Ukraine, according to Reuters.
For decades, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in a dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a landlocked area between Eastern Europe and Western Asia that is populated and formerly controlled by ethnic Armenians but is located on Azerbaijani territory.
The unrest in the region dates back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the region, backed by Armenia, declared its independence from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has been claiming for a long time that it will regain the territory, internationally recognized as Azerbaijani.
In November 2020, fighting in the region resumed for nearly two months, killing at least 6,500 people, according to Reuters. Hostilities ended after Armenian-backed separatists agreed to relinquish control of territories in the restive region. Russia helped broker the ceasefire agreement between the two countries, under which President Vladimir Putin sent peacekeeping forces along the Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact.
“As far as we know, that peacekeeping presence is still there,” Kirby told reporters Tuesday. Asked if Russia might relocate its troops to Armenia, Kirby said: “We haven’t seen any indication that Russian forces are repositioning now.”
On Tuesday, Armenia called on Russia to implement a 1997 defense treaty that stipulates that the countries will defend each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in the event of an attack by a foreign country.
“The decision was made to officially request the Russian Federation to apply the provisions of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the UN Security Council in connection with the aggression against the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia,” read a statement from the Armenian Prime Minister’s office.
The request came after a session with the Armenian Security Council and a call between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Putin, according to a statement from Pashinyan’s office.
Just a few hours after Moscow would say that had facilitated a ceasefire between the two nations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his concern about the possibility that Russia tried to “stir the pot” between Armenia and Azerbaijan “to create a distraction from Ukraine”.
Kirby said the US was “actively engaged” in trying to help end the violence, adding that Blinken had spoken with both the president of Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia.
“We are actively engaged with both the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments to see what we can do to end this violence,” Kirby told reporters on Tuesday.
With information from Hannah Ritchie, Philip Wang, Anna Chernova, Eleni Giokos, and Aren Melikyan.
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