Pashinian complained on Thursday that Baku has been stepping up ceasefire violations despite the presence of the 2,000 peacekeepers deployed after the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. He called for “adjusting details of the peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.” In particular, he suggested giving the Russian contingent a “broader international mandate.”
“If we see that solutions are not possible in a trilateral [Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani] format, we will have to think about activating additional international mechanisms,” Pashinian warned without elaborating.
Commenting on Pashinian’s remarks, Lavrov said: “It’s hard for me to answer this question because we haven’t seen concrete proposals which the Armenian prime minister wants to discuss in the context of the Russian peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. So I can’t guess now.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the peacekeepers are “making every effort to stabilize the situation on the ground.”
Viktor Bondarev, a senior member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, also defended the peacekeepers, saying he is confident that they will prevent another Armenian-Azerbaijani war. In a social media post, Bondarev also argued that the Karabakh conflict is “extinguished but not resolved.”
“Moreover, it was extinguished by the Russian peacekeepers, not by the goodwill of the conflicting sides,” he wrote.
The peacekeepers’ commander, Major-General Andrei Volkov, met on Thursday with a group of Karabakh public figures and fringe politicians. A statement released by the Russian contingent said Volkov assured them that Moscow will do everything to prevent another upsurge in tensions.
Some participants of the meeting came away dissatisfied and rallied several dozen supporters in Stepanakert on Friday.
“Yesterday we heard nothing that gives us reason to believe that the situation will be peaceful today,” one of them, Artur Osipian, said. He cited Volkov as saying that the peacekeepers lack personnel and powers to prevent fresh Azerbaijani attacks on Karabakh Armenian forces.
Wednesday’s attacks left two Karabakh Armenian soldiers dead and 19 others wounded. The warring sides blamed each other for the fighting.