Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of trying to torpedo peace talks on Nagorno-Karabakh after reporting the most serious ceasefire violations in the Karabakh conflict zone in months.
The Azerbaijani military said on Thursday one of its servicemen, was shot and killed by enemy fire near Karabakh. The victim identified as Aqil Omarov was reportedly a mid-ranking officer.
The Foreign Ministry in Baku seized upon the reported incident to accuse Armenia of seeking to scuttle more high-level negotiations planned by the two sides.
Karabakh’s Armenian-backed Defense Army insisted that its troops did not breach the ceasefire at any section of “the line of contact.” The army reported a sharp rise in Azerbaijani truce violations on the night from Friday to Saturday. One of its soldiers, Sipan Melkonian, died as a result.
In a weekend statement, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry accused Azerbaijan of deliberately “escalating the situation” and said its actions represent a “serious setback for all the efforts taken over the past months.” The statement also questioned Baku’s commitment to confidence-building understandings reached by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Aliyev’s and Pashinian’s first face-to-face meeting held in Tajikistan in September was followed by a significant decrease in ceasefire violations.
The Azerbaijani side brushed aside the “emotional” and “contradictory” statement. It said Armenian “occupation of Azerbaijani lands” is the root cause of the Karabakh conflict and resulting casualties.
The tensions around Karabakh rose as U.S., Russian and French mediators co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group wrapped up their latest tour of the conflict zone with a meeting with Aliyev held in Baku. “The Co-Chairs expressed deep concern about recent casualties and called on the parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid escalation,” read a joint statement released by them.
Commenting on their talks in Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku, the mediators said they presented the conflicting parties with “proposals for concrete next steps in the settlement process.” “The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan accepted the Co-Chairs’ proposal to meet soon under their auspices, and will announce details at the appropriate time,” added their statement.
The date and venue of the ministers’ meeting has not been announced yet.
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