YEREVAN: Armenia said on Tuesday that around 50 of its soldiers had been killed in the worst clashes since their war with Azerbaijan two years ago, but Russia said it had quickly convinced the historic rivals to agree to a ceasefire. has taken.
After hours of intense border fighting, Armenia appealed for help from world leaders, saying Azerbaijani forces were trying to advance on its territory.
The fighting was the worst since the end of the war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region between the former Soviet republics in 2020, in which more than 6,500 people were killed on both sides.
It came with Moscow, Yerevan’s closest ally — which has deployed thousands of peacekeepers to the region since the war — unsettled by the six-month invasion of Ukraine.
But Russia said it had managed to halt the clashes, with the Foreign Ministry in Moscow saying a ceasefire had been agreed as of 9 a.m. Moscow time (0600 GMT).
“We expect the ceasefire agreement reached as a result of Russian mediation to be fully implemented,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was “deeply concerned” by the escalation of fighting. ” Is.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed parliament on Tuesday morning, after calling French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Secretary of State Antony Blanken to demand an “adequate response” to “Azerbaijan’s aggressive actions”. .
“At this point, we have 49 (soldiers) dead and unfortunately this is not the final number,” Pashinyan told lawmakers.
Call Moscow for help.
Azerbaijan said it had also suffered casualties in the fighting, but did not give a death toll.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan said the clashes began early Tuesday, with artillery, mortars and drones firing into Armenian territory in the direction of the cities of Gores, Sotuk and Jarmuk.
“The enemy is trying to advance (in Armenian territory),” he said in a statement.
But Azerbaijan accused Armenia of “massive acts of sabotage” near the districts of Daşkeşan, Kilbazar and Lachin, and said its armed forces were responding with “limited and targeted actions, neutralizing Armenian firing points.” are doing”.
Turkey, a longtime political and military sponsor of Azerbaijan, has accused Armenia of being responsible for the outbreak of fighting and urged Yerevan to negotiate.
“Armenia should stop its provocations and focus on peace talks and cooperation with Azerbaijan,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted after a phone call with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jehon Biramov.
Pashinyan chaired an emergency meeting of the country’s Security Council on Tuesday that agreed to formally request military assistance from Moscow, which is bound by a treaty to defend Armenia in the event of a foreign attack. .
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan said Defense Minister Soren Papikyan and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu had a phone conversation “to discuss Azerbaijan’s aggression against the independent territory of Armenia,” adding that the two ” Agreed to take necessary steps to stabilize the situation.”
Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes several former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
Washington is concerned.
The United States had previously called for an end to the fighting, with Secretary of State Anthony Blanken saying that the US was “deeply concerned” by the situation, which included “reported attacks against settlements and civilian infrastructure” in Armenia. ” is also included.
“As we have long made clear, there can be no military solution to the conflict,” Blanken said in a statement. “We call for the immediate cessation of any military hostilities.”
Last week, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing one of its soldiers in a cross-border exchange of fire.
In August, Azerbaijan said it had lost one soldier and the Karabakh army said it had two soldiers killed and more than a dozen wounded.
The neighbors fought two wars — in the 1990s and in the 2020s — over Azerbaijan’s territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated region.
Six weeks of brutal fighting ended in the fall of 2020 with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Under the agreement, Armenia relinquished territory it had controlled for decades and Moscow deployed some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile ceasefire.
During EU-mediated talks in Brussels in May and April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan agreed to “advance talks” on a future peace deal.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan.
