Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Saturday, October 31, asked President Vladimir Putin to start "urgent" consultations on the assistance that Russia could provide to ensure the security of his country, which is in conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh.
This announcement, likely to provoke an escalation in the conflict, came the day after the failure of new talks between Yerevan and Baku aimed at establishing a ceasefire.
"The Prime Minister of Armenia has called on the Russian president to start urgent consultations with the aim of determining the nature and the amount of the assistance that the Russian Federation can provide to Armenia to ensure its security," the ministry said. Foreign Affairs in a press release.
Treaty of friendship and mutual assistance
Russia has a military base in Armenia.
It is linked to Yerevan by a defense treaty, but has claimed in the past that it does not extend to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In his letter, Nikol Pashinian claimed that the fighting was drawing closer to the Armenian borders and again accused Turkey of supporting Azerbaijan.
Citing good relations between the two countries and a treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance that has bound them since 1997, he called on Moscow for help.
Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Djeyhoun Baïramov met in Geneva on Friday to try unsuccessfully to find a solution to the crisis which has left more than 1,250 dead in just over a month.
Since September 27, the Azerbaijani forces and those of Nagorno-Karabakh supported by Yerevan have clashed again.
So far, three attempts at a humanitarian truce have been shattered.
Nagorno-Karabakh seceded from Azerbaijan in the 1990s after a war that claimed 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands.
With AFP
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