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Yerevan Reports Unconfirmed Truce With Azerbaijan As Armenians Demand PM's Resignation

By RFE/RL's Armenian Service, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service September 15, 2022

A senior Armenian official has said that a cease-fire had been agreed with Azerbaijan after two days of heavy fighting linked to a decades-old dispute between the ex-Soviet Caucasus neighbors over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armen Grigorian, secretary of Armenia's Security Council, told Armenian television "Thanks to the involvement of the international community, an agreement has been reached on a cease-fire."

The announcement said the truce had been in effect for several hours. Armenia's Defense Ministry had earlier said that shooting in border areas had stopped.

However, there was no word from Azerbaijan about a truce to halt the deadliest fighting between the countries since 2020.

In Yerevan, thousands of people took to the streets late on September 14 to demand the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, whom they accuse of appeasing Azerbaijan.

The seemingly spontaneous protest was apparently sparked by Pashinian's statement in parliament earlier in the day that he was ready to "make tough decisions for the sake of peace."

"We want to sign a document a result of which many people will criticize, curse, and declare us traitors," Pashinian said.

"The people could even remove us from power. We will still be happy if as a result of that [document] the Republic of Armenia gets a lasting peace and security on its 29,800-square-kilometer territory."

Pashinian did not elaborate on the contents of such a document.

On September 14, clashes erupted for a second day between Azerbaijan and Armenia as world leaders called for an immediate cessation in hostilities and international peace efforts intensified.

Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other for initiating the new rounds of cross-border shelling, which came a day after the deadliest clashes between the two Caucasus neighbors since the end of a 2020 war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinian on September 14 raised the number of ethnic Armenian troops killed in the recent clashes from 49 to 105, and Azerbaijan said it was ready to hand over the corpses of up to 100 Armenian troops to the other side.

Azerbaijan said on September 13 it had lost 50 troops. The Defense Ministry's press service did not give an update on casualties during a briefing on September 14 but said additional information would be provided.

Pashinian told parliament that Armenia had appealed to the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to help it restore its territorial integrity.

"Our allies are Russia and the CSTO," Pashinian said, adding that the CSTO pact states that an aggression against one member is an aggression against all.

The Azerbaijani military said two Azerbaijani civilians were killed in shelling of its positions in the Kalbacar and Lachin districts of Azerbaijan near the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Diplomatic efforts to calm the situation were under way on September 14.

Toivo Klaar, the special representative of the European Union for the South Caucasus, met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and expressed concern. Klaar noted that EU leaders had spoken by phone with Pashinian and Aliyev.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke by phone with the two leaders, while the State Department said Washington would "push for an immediate halt to fighting and a peace settlement."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also urged the two sides to urgently de-escalate tensions.

Aliyev accused Armenia of provoking the attacks and said that Azerbaijan supported the peace agenda already begun by Brussels.

Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years. Armenian-backed separatists seized the mainly Armenian-populated region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people.

The two sides fought another war in 2020 that lasted six weeks and killed an estimated 6,000 people before a Russia-brokered cease-fire, resulting in Armenia losing control over parts of the region and seven adjacent districts.

Under the cease-fire Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers. Russia moved quickly to negotiate an end to the latest hostilities, but a renewal of the cease-fire has failed to hold.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of other CSTO members discussed the situation on September 13, urging a quick cessation of hostilities. They agreed to send a mission of top officials from the security alliance to the area.

The first group of members of the CSTO mission will arrive in Armenia on September 15, said Vladimir Zaynetdinov, spokesman for the organization.

Putin is set to hold a meeting on September 16 with Aliyev in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where they both plan to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security grouping dominated by Russia and China.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, dpa, and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-azerbaijan- karabakh-truce/32034673.html

Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.