Armenians took over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts from Azerbaijan in the 1991-1994 conflict. The Azerbaijani government is frustrated with the slow pace of the negotiations for a political settlement, he said, and wants to see a complete withdrawal of ethnic Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Advertisement
Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region that rejects Azerbaijan’s rule, said there was still some sporadic shooting but that the intensity of the fighting had dropped off significantly.
The previous war between the two ex-Soviet states killed thousands on both sides and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United States has criticized the reality TV star for weighing in on the recent hostilities between his country’s military and the ethnic Armenian separatists, backed by the Armenian military, in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh – a largely ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.
The fighting has raised fears of a possible regional escalation, with Turkey strongly backing Azerbaijan and Russian Federation obliged by a mutual security pact to protect Armenia.
“I express my condolences to all Azeris… over the deaths of Azeri citizens resulting from Armenian attacks”, Davutoğlu said April 5, noting that he had called Azerbaijani President İlham Aliyev.
The committee, which comprises of members from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), condemned Armenian attacks in a joint statement Tuesday.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is set to travel to both Yerevan and Baku in the coming days.
On Thursday, each side alleged the other had violated the Moscow-brokered truce in skirmishes overnight.
One day prior to Davutoğlu’s remarks, Erdoğan predicted that Azerbaijan would “one day” regain control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The chiefs of the General Staff of Armenia and Azerbaijan held a meeting in Moscow on April 5, at which they agreed to enact an immediate ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, said Armenia’s defense minister as cited by Russian media.
Azerbaijan said 31 of its servicemen and four civilians died in the clashes that first broke out April 1.
With official Armenian and Azerbaijani sources giving no further details of the phone calls, it was not clear whether Putin sought to organize a meeting of Presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev.
The forces of Azerbaijan and the Armenian separatist clashed at the line of contact, which effectively serves as front line, with the two sides exchanging artillery fire and deploying heavy military equipment.
Azerbaijan said its troops had seized small pockets of territory in the latest fighting, and were fortifying those locations to make sure that it held on to its gains.
Lavrov will talk about a diplomatic solution during meetings Friday with Armenia’s foreign minister.
Advertisement
These opposing alignments have prompted some analysts to suggest the Karabakh dispute risks prompting a proxy conflict between Turkey and Russian Federation who are already at loggerheads over the war in Syria.
