Ceasefire Breaches Azerbaijan and Armenia Yet Again

Shortly after a new ceasefire in the conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of the South Caucasus went into effect Monday, Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of violating the agreement.

 

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry in Baku reported on Monday that his soldiers had been shot at in the village of Safijan.

The authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have denied this. The Armenian Ministry of Defense in Yerevan accused Baku of targeted “disinformation”.

Azerbaijani forces have resumed artillery shelling against Nagorno-Karabakh 45 minutes after the ceasefire took effect, a defence ministry spokeswoman in Yerevan said. The new attempt at a humanitarian ceasefire had been negotiated through the United States.

Since the conflict between the two ex-Soviet republics flared up at the end of September, many casualties have been lost on both sides. Previous ceasefire agreements that were made under the supervision of Moscow did not last.

Azerbaijan lost control of the mountainous region of about 145,000 inhabitants in a war after the collapse of the Soviet Union about thirty years ago.

Since 1994 there has been a vulnerable ceasefire. Azerbaijan relies on its “brother state” of Turkey in the conflict. Russia, in turn, is Armenia’s protective power.

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