(RimPress)-Armenia said on Tuesday that at least 49 soldiers had been killed in clashes along its border with Azerbaijan after hostilities sharply escalated, urging major powers to call for restraint.
Armenia said several towns near its border with Azerbaijan, including Yermuk, Goris and Kapan, opened fire early Tuesday morning in response to what it called a "massive provocation" by Azerbaijan.
Baku said it had been attacked by Armenia.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has accused Azerbaijan of attacking Armenian cities. They do not want to negotiate the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan but mostly inhabited by Armenians.
"Although the intensity of hostilities has decreased, attacks on one or two fronts from Azerbaijan continue," Pashinyan said in his parliamentary address, according to Russian media. The recent decades-long escalation of hostilities between the two South Caucasus countries has fueled fears that a second full-scale war could erupt in the post-Soviet world, in addition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. is doing.
Azerbaijan, which Armenia accuses of spying and transporting weapons along its border, said its military strongholds had been attacked by Armenia. Azerbaijani media reported that the ceasefire was broken shortly after it was put into force early on Tuesday.
"As we have long made clear, there can be no military solution to any conflict," US Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said in a statement. "We demand an immediate end to all military hostilities."
Russia, which operates military bases in Armenia, is a major power broker in the region and an ally of Yerevan through the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, while Turkey supports Azerbaijan. Armenian and Russian defense ministers met on Tuesday morning and agreed to take steps to stabilize the situation at the border, while Turkish Foreign Minister Mevrut Cavusoglu called Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyfun Bayramov. called and urged Armenia to "stop provocations".
EU Council President Charles Michel also called on Pashinyan to prevent further escalation.
Russia will enter the region in 2020 as part of a deal aimed at ending six weeks of hostilities between the two sides, while Azerbaijan made significant territorial gains in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. We dispatched thousands of peacekeepers.
