The European Union urges the “immediate end” of the fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which had signed a ceasefire in 2020 that ended the war for this enclave in the Caucasus
At least two Armenian soldiers and one Azerbaijani soldier have died this Wednesday in the framework of new clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan near the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the Caucasus mountain range. The authorities of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic, officially known as Artsaj, have indicated that two soldiers have been killed and 14 have been wounded with mortars and grenade launchers “at a permanent location of one of the military units.”
Previously, the Ministry of Defense has communicated on its official Twitter profile that the attack occurred as a result of a drone “in the northwestern part of the line of contact between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.” After the armed clashes between the parties, the president of the self-proclaimed republic, Araik Arutiunián, has signed a decree announcing a partial military mobilization starting this Wednesday, according to the Armenpress news agency.
For its part, the Azerbaijan Ministry of Defense has indicated in a statement that members of Armenian armed groups “fired intensely at the positions of the Army units, located in the direction of the Lachin region”, resulting in the death of a soldier by gunshot wound.
Currently, the Lachin corridor connects Armenia with the Nagorno-Karabakh region and is controlled by the Russian military deployed as peacekeepers under the ceasefire agreement signed by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, on November 9, 2020. The agreement established that the corridor would be made up of a strip of territory five kilometers wide and that the Armenian military forces would withdraw from the area to cede control to the Russian military.
“A de-escalation is essential”
The European Union on Wednesday urged an “immediate cessation of hostilities” between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, in the Caucasus region. “A de-escalation is essential, with full respect for the ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table to seek a negotiated solution,” the spokesman for the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said in a statement.
Five days ago, the Armenian Ministry of Defense denounced an attack by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces against its military positions located in the eastern part of the common border without any possible victims being recorded.
Armenia and Azerbaijan staged a confrontation in 2020 to take control of Nagorno Karabakh, a territory with a majority Armenian population that has been a focus of conflict since it decided to separate in 1988 from the Azerbaijan region integrated into the Soviet Union. Hostilities between the two nations lasted for six weeks and left thousands dead. They finally ceased when the two countries reached a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement, allowing Russian peacekeepers to settle in Nagorno-Karabakh for a period of five years.
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