The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict broke out in 1988 February when the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region announced its secession from Azerbaijan. The war ended with a fragile truce in 1994, followed since by irregular acts of violence.
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Arye Gut, an expert in the sphere of worldwide relations, who is in Baku at the moment, comments on the latest events and states that the Armenian side, which has shown its desire to ruin the peace process with Azerbaijan, is committing provocations on the occupied Azerbaijani lands, including on the Line of Contact, using numerous military weapons and forces.
President Vladimir Putin likewise telephoned Armenia’s Serzh Sarkisian and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday.
EU High Representative Federica Mogherini yesterday spoke by phone to the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Elmar Mammadyarov and Edward Nalbandian, regarding the upsurge of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Erdogan also accused Armenia of not sticking to a truce with Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan in Nagorny Karabakh, which was captured from Azerbaijan by Armenian separatists in an early 1990s war.
“Beyond all doubt, we are interested – maybe more than the other foreign partners of these two countries – in this conflict being settled as soon as possible”, Lavrov said after meeting his Azeri counterpart. Nakhchivan is surrounded by Armenia, Iran and Turkey.
A 2005 draft peace plan never got off the ground amid bitter hostility between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh military spokesman Senor Asratyan insisted its forces have strictly respected the cease-fire, which was agreed upon by the top military officers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, who met in Moscow on Tuesday. Armenia’s seeking a “complete and final settlement” that could include the presence of peacekeepers between the two sides, Sargsyan said in an interview with Deutsche Welle. With Germany now holding the rotating presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Steinmeier has repeatedly expressed concern at the bloody hostilities in Karabakh in recent days.
Separately, the Defense Ministry claimed that Armenian forces shelled several districts in Azerbaijan’s Naxcivan exclave.
Both sides report numerous casualties, accusing each other on Saturday of violating a ceasefire, a sign that the two-decade-old conflict which has left some 30,000 people dead is far from a peaceful resolution.
On a visit to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasised Moscow’s special role as mediator.
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Azerbaijan has made strategic gains in the current fighting, capturing high ground from which it can shell separatist forces or launch attacks. “But I want to mention at once that trust reinforcement in the conflict zone does not at all mean that we can enfeeble in necessity to find a multilateral political solution to Karabakh conflict”, he stated.
