Azerbaijan announced on Wednesday that its army had occupied positions in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and destroyed Armenian targets, sparking fears of a resurgence of the Azerbaijani-Armenian war in a military operation dubbed “revenge”. Armenian population.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said the Azerbaijani army had “established control over several high positions”, including in the mountains, AFP quoted, adding that Azerbaijani troops were strengthening their occupied positions.
Both camps had earlier reported the deaths of at least two Armenian fighters and an Azeri soldier in the outbreak of violence, according to Agerpres.
Russia, which brokered the ceasefire agreement that ended the 2020 war and deployed a peacekeeping force in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, accused Azerbaijan of violating the ceasefire in the Saribaba region.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Moscow was taking “measures to stabilize the deteriorating situation” in the region.
According to the version of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, its troops were targeted by gunfire in Latsin district, a buffer zone between the Armenian border and Nagorno-Karabakh, so it launched a retaliatory operation, hence the name “retaliation”. This one.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh province, which has a majority Armenian population, since the 1990s. Their last battle, in the fall of 2020, resulted in around 6,500 deaths and was halted by a ceasefire negotiated by Russia in the face of imminent defeat by Armenian troops.
According to the agreement concluded at that time, after the war in the early 90s, Armenia had to cede part of this province and the surrounding Azeri territories to Azerbaijan.
Armenia has traditionally had close ties with Russia, including its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in autumn 2020, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan asked Moscow for the CSTO to intervene because Armenian forces outnumbered the capabilities of the Turkish-backed Azeri army.
The Kremlin – which views Pashinyan as a pro-Western politician who came to power after a “color revolution” – denied at the time that the Nagorno-Karabakh region was not Armenia’s territory, an internationally recognized fact.
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