At least one Azerbaijani and two Armenian soldiers were wounded in border skirmishes that reportedly broke out on Tuesday evening and continued the following day. The two sides blamed each other for the ceasefire violations reported by them from border areas separating Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province from Azerbaijan’s Lachin district.
The fighting continued as Armenian and Azerbaijani government commissions on border demarcation and delimitation held a joint session at another section of the heavily militarized frontier located hundreds of kilometers northwest of the Syunik-Lachin section.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said that the commissions headed by deputy prime ministers of the two South Caucasus states “continued discussing delimitation issues and addressed a number of organizational and procedural issues.” It gave no other details.
Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian proposed the joint meeting to his Azerbaijani counterpart Shahin Mustafayev last month following increased tensions along the border. Grigorian’s office said it should discuss “current contentious issues that are causing tension on the border.”
The border demarcation was on the agenda of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s June 1 meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held in Moldova’s capital Chisinau. Pashinian suggested right after those talks that Baku is open to accepting an Armenian proposal to use 1975 Soviet maps as a basis for delimiting the long border.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry denied that, however. It emphasized that Azerbaijan has demarcated its borders with other neighboring states “on the basis of analyses and examination of legally binding documents, rather than any specially chosen map.”
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan acknowledged on June 5 that Yerevan and Baku continue to disagree on the key parameters of delimiting their border. This is one of the stumbling blocks in their ongoing talks on a bilateral peace treaty. Aliyev and Pashinian are due to meet again later this month.
Pashinian and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the peace process in a phone call on Tuesday. Blinken tweeted afterwards that he reiterated his “strong support for ongoing efforts to secure peace with Azerbaijan.”