Civil Contract faction member Eduard Aghajanian, who heads the parliament’s foreign relations committee, noted that the areas in the east of Nagorno-Karabakh that Azerbaijani forces took control of as a result of their advancement on March 24-25 were in the zone of Russian peacekeepers’ responsibility under the terms of the November 2020 ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan brokered by Moscow.
“In fact, advancing Azerbaijani armed forces appeared behind the Russian peacekeepers’ backs. According to a corresponding provision of the November 9, 2020 trilateral statement, this is the area of responsibility for the Russian peacekeepers. Therefore, we expect clear answers from our Russian partners as to in what conditions this happened,” Aghajanian said.
The Armenian lawmaker said that Yerevan expected the problem to be solved “within the shortest possible time.”
“We expect that the Azerbaijani armed forces will withdraw and return to the positions from where they launched their advancement,” Aghajanian said.
He noted the use of attack drones, including Bayraktar TB-2s, by Azerbaijan during its advancement that sparked skirmishes with Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian forces.
“We are talking about a very specific escalation, in connection with which our questions are first of all addressed to our Russian partners who, as we assume, should have excluded it in the area of their responsibility,” Aghajanian said.
Authorities in Stepanakert, meanwhile, said on Friday that so far Russian peacekeepers have been unsuccessful in trying to achieve the withdrawal of Azerbaijani forces from the area of their responsibility.
They added that they still hoped that “due to decisive efforts of the Russian side it will be possible to achieve the withdrawal of the Azerbaijani troops and Armenian civilians will be able to return to their homes.”
“Otherwise, the security guarantees given to the civilian population in Nagorno-Karabakh will be seriously questioned,” Nagorno-Karabakh’s Information Headquarters, a body affiliated with the region’s de-facto government, said.