Armenia calls on Russian peacekeepers to intervene in Nagorno-Karabakh
Azerbaijan on Tuesday launched a military operation in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region and demanded the total withdrawal of Armenian forces from the mountainous territory as a precondition for peace, Reuters reports quoted by Rador.
In recent weeks, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of building up troops and decried a blockade of its only land link to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan urged Russia and United Nations to take action to stop the fighting.
“First of all, Russia must take steps and, secondly, we expect the UN Security Council to also take steps,” Pashinyan, whose country is in a military alliance led by Moscow, said in televised comments.
“We must not allow certain people, certain forces to deal a blow to the Armenian state. There are already calls, coming from different places, to stage a coup in Armenia.”
Armenia’s defence ministry has denied its troops were present in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia, which brokered a ceasefire in 2020 and has peacekeepers in the region, has called for an end to the fighting. “We are deeply concerned about the sharp escalation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a news briefing.
“The main thing is to prevent human casualties … the main thing is to convince Yerevan and Baku to come to the negotiating table,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov said the Russian military had been in contact with both Baku and Azerbaijan and that Moscow was urging talks. The EU condemned the escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh and called on Azerbaijan to stop its military activities, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.
