Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told an online news conference on Tuesday that there should be more contact between the authorities of Armenia and Azerbaijan to “help stabilize the situation, seek solutions and avoid crises”.
Pashinyan said six Armenians were killed in clashes on November 16 and Azerbaijan took 32 other soldiers as prisoners. Azerbaijan reported that seven of its soldiers were killed.
The dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the separatist region Negarno-Karabakh has been going on for decades. Negarno-Karabakh falls under the territory of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces supported by Armenia since the separatist war that ended in 1994. Fighting in the region began in September 2020 and thousands of people were killed in a fierce 44-day battle. In this war, the army of Azerbaijan repulsed the army of Armenia.
Russia has deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers for at least five years to oversee the peace deal. The peace deal was celebrated as a victory in Azerbaijan, but in Armenia it is seen as a betrayal by the opposition. Pashinyan defended this as the only way to prevent Armenian forces from losing control of the Negarno-Karabakh region.
About 2,000 opposition supporters gathered in the capital central Yerevan on Tuesday and urged Pashinyan to make the demarcation agreement public before signing it.
Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev are expected to meet in Brussels on 15 December for EU-sponsored talks.
AP
gola shobhana
Shobhana
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