International mediators have urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to honour their new ceasefire agreement after recent fighting in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, and to negotiate a solution to their long-standing conflict.
“Reports on the cessation of hostilities are encouraging. Our immediate efforts must now focus on stabilising the ceasefire and preventing any new escalation,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is chairing the Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) this year.
A group of Russian, French and US diplomats who co-chair an OSCE mediation group set on resolving the long-standing conflict travelled to Nagorno-Karabakh yesterday, following consultations at OSCE headquarters in Vienna.
“The deterioration of the situation on the ground demonstrates the need for an immediate negotiation, under the auspices of the co-chairs, on a comprehensive settlement,” the so-called Minsk Group said in a written statement.
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed yesterday to an immediate ceasefire after a recent surge of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, the TASS news agency reported, citing Armenia’s defence ministry.
“Operations along the line of contact between the Azerbaijani and Armenian forces have been suspended from noon local time [0900 GMT] on April 5 upon the agreement of the parties,” the Armenian ministry was quoted as saying.
Azerbaijan’s defence ministry confirmed to the Interfax news agency that a ceasefire deal had been reached.
The two former Soviet republics have fought for decades over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, populated primarily by Armenian Christians but recognised by the UN as part of predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan.
Both countries have traded blame for sudden violence that reportedly erupted on Friday night.
The fighting has been the most severe since a ceasefire was agreed in 1994.
OSCE monitors stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh have yet to confirm that the ceasefire is holding because they have not yet been able to reach the areas where fighting has taken place, according to an OSCE spokesman.
The eruption of violence has happened amid wider regional tensions.
Armenia is in a military alliance with Russia, while Azerbaijan enjoys close ties with Turkey.
Relations between Russia and Turkey are currently tense as they back opposing sides in the Syrian civil war.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will visit Armenia tomorrow and Azerbaijan on Friday as part of efforts to restore peace in the region, the Interfax news agency reported, citing his spokeswoman.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan had told OSCE representatives on Monday that the conflict has the potential to devolve into an all-out war.
Sargsyan was scheduled to visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel today for talks expected to focus on the heightened regional tensions.
Azerbaijan’s defence ninistry said in a statement on its website on Monday that 170 soldiers had died in the recent clashes.
According to Armenia’s defence ministry, Azerbaijani troops started the fighting with an offensive involving tanks and artillery, to which Armenian forces responded by shooting down a combat helicopter and destroying several tanks and drones.
Azerbaijan denied the allegations, saying that its soldiers were reacting to heavy attacks from the Armenian side.
Separatists backed by Yerevan seized control of mountainous Nagorny Karabakh, a majority ethnic Armenian region lying inside Azerbaijan, in an early 1990s war after the Soviet Union crumbled that claimed some 30,000 lives.
The sides have never signed a peace deal despite the 1994 ceasefire and sporadic violence regularly claims lives of soldiers on both sides, though the latest outbreak represented a serious escalation.
While ex-Soviet master Moscow has sold arms to both sides and treads a careful line between the two, it has a military alliance with, and base in, Armenia and far closer ties to Yerevan.