The conversation between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Russian President Vladimir Putin was held after reports of fresh fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh where at least three ethnic Armenian soldiers were killed and more than a dozen were wounded as Azerbaijani forces took control of a village and nearby heights supposed to be protected by Russian peacekeepers.
The Armenian prime minister’s press office said that during the phone call the two leaders discussed “the situation created after the invasion by Azerbaijani units into the zone of responsibility of the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation in Nagorno-Karabakh.” It said that Pashinian assessed the situation as tense.
“Prime Minister Pashinian raised the need to investigate the actions of Russian peacekeepers in the given situation and stressed that it is necessary that Russian peacekeepers demand that Azerbaijani armed forces withdraw to their initial positions,” the transcript of the phone call released by the Armenian side said.
“The leaders of the two countries agreed to make efforts to resolve the crisis situation in Nagorno-Karabakh,” it added.
About 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh as part of a Moscow-brokered ceasefire that put an end to a six-week war between Armenians and Azerbaijan in November 2020.
Meanwhile, France, which along with Russia and the United States co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group that spearheads international mediation efforts on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has expressed its concern over the advancement of the Azerbaijani army in the region and called for its withdrawal to the positions determined by the 2020 truce.
“France regrets the armed incidents in the area of Parukh and Khramort, and calls on the Azerbaijani units to return to the positions they held on the day of the declaration of a ceasefire on November 9, 2020,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late on Friday.
During a U.S. State Department briefing on March 25, principal deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter said that “the United States is deeply concerned about Azerbaijan troop movements.”
“Troop movements and other escalatory measures are irresponsible and unnecessarily provocative,” she said, according to the transcript of the briefing published by the State Department’s official website.
Porter added that the United States, as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, “remains deeply committed to working with the sides to achieve a long-term political settlement of the conflict.”
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has denied reports about fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to Azerbaijani media, official Baku says that “specifications of positions and locations are taking place on the ground without any use of force.”