In a statement issued late on Thursday the Armenian Foreign Ministry said that “such actions by Baku seriously endanger regional stability and peace.”
It said that in late afternoon Azerbaijani armed forces violated the line of contact with Nagorno-Karabakh in the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping mission and moved into the village of Parukh in the region’s eastern Askeran district.
“These aggressive actions of Azerbaijan once again demonstrate that official Baku continues to grossly violate the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020, according to which the hostilities were ceased, the sides stopped in their positions and peacekeeping forces of the Russian Federation were deployed along the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Armenian ministry said.
“These actions were preceded by Azerbaijan’s complete disruption of the only gas pipeline supplying Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – red.], the targeting of civilian infrastructure with large-caliber weapons, terrorizing threats towards the Armenians of Artsakh, and other steps aimed at ethnic cleansing. Moreover, along with the drastic escalation of the security situation in Europe, such actions by Baku seriously endanger regional stability and peace,” it added.
The ministry said that Yerevan expects that “the Russian peacekeeping force in whose area of responsibility the provocation takes place will undertake measures to ensure that the Azerbaijani troops immediately return to their initial positions and adhere to the commitments undertaken under the November 9 Trilateral Statement.”
“We call on the international community to make a clear assessment of Azerbaijan’s provocative actions aimed at undermining the peace process and to support efforts for establishing peace in the South Caucasus and achieving a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said.
Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said late on Thursday that the situation in the villages of Parukh and Khramort of the region’s Askeran district was under the control of the Russian peacekeeping force.
“As a result of negotiations and additional measures to ensure security, the advancement of the Azerbaijani armed forces has been stopped at the moment, but the adversary has not yet withdrawn to its initial positions,” Nagorno-Karabakh’s Information Headquarters, an agency affiliated with the region’s de facto government, said.
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry has denied any advancement of its troops “in the territory of Azerbaijan where the Russian peacekeeping contingent is temporarily deployed.”
In a statement issued yesterday it said that “specifications of positions and locations are taking place on the ground” and that “no clashes or incidents have occurred.”
“Armenian media artificially exaggerate the situation. The goal is to create an atmosphere that can cause hysteria and mislead the public. There is no reason to worry,” the ministry said, as quoted by the Azerbaijani news website Haqqin.az.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported late on Thursday that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh was discussed in a telephone conversation between Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian and his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu.
“Sergey Shoigu gave assurances that the situation was in the center of the Russian side’s attention and that necessary steps were being taken to resolve it peacefully,” the Armenian ministry said in a statement.
Issues pertaining to regional security were also discussed in a telephone conversation between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried, which was also reported on March 24.
“Both sides highlighted the importance of steps aimed at de-escalation [in Nagorno-Karabakh],” the Armenian ministry said in a statement.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region in Soviet Azerbaijan, has been claiming its independence from Baku since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a separatist war waged in the early 1990s that also led to ethnic Armenians making territorial gains inside Azerbaijan proper.
The standoff with Baku led to another war in 2020 in which about 7,000 soldiers and more than 200 civilians were killed. As a result of that war Azerbaijani forces gained control of parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as seven adjacent districts that had been under Armenian control since 1994.
Some 2,000 Russian troops were deployed in the region to monitor the ceasefire following a Moscow-brokered truce.