Armenia: Nikol Pachinian wants Russian troops on the border with Azerbaijan
The Armenian Prime Minister, in Yerevan, July 17, 2021. AFP - KAREN MINASYAN
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
In the Caucasus, the situation remains tense on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Wednesday July 28, clashes left three Armenians dead near the border village of Sotk.
Worried about the renewed tension, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian hopes to convince Russia to deploy troops permanently along the border with Azerbaijan.
Publicity
Read more
Russian border guards are already monitoring part of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In addition, Russian peacekeeping troops were deployed at the end of last year in Nagorno-Karabakh and in the Latchin corridor, which links this enclave to Armenia.
Four FSB detachments from Russia also guard the border with Turkey and Iran.
Nikol Pachinian wants this Russian presence to expand further and calls for the deployment of Russian border guard outposts "
all along the border
".
For the head of the Armenian government, this presence "would make it possible to carry out the work of demarcation and delimitation without risk of military clashes".
He also pleads for the deployment of an observer mission of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which brings together Russia and five other former Soviet republics, including Armenia.
Regularly, since the ceasefire agreement of November 10, skirmishes have taken place in the gray areas between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, and between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the borders not being there. not clearly demarcated.
Moscow refuses for the moment to comment on this Yerevan proposal.
“
Contacts are continuing,
” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Russia
Nikol Pachinian