Azerbaijan - Armenia: it is a truce

There is already a truce on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia a few hours after the start of the advance into Armenian territory. 

The two former republics of the Caucasus, reports Tass, have agreed on a ceasefire in the affected areas: "After the response measures taken by the Azerbaijani armed forces, the parties agreed on a ceasefire from 09:00 local time (08: 00 Moscow time). At the same time, the Armenian side violated this agreement, but from 09:15 (08:15 Moscow time) a ceasefire was installed. "

The two countries are grappling with the long-standing dispute for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region

, over which they have already fought two bloody wars in the past.

The Armenian Defense Ministry reported that Moscow and Yerevan have pledged to take measures to "stabilize the situation".

In a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian "presented the situation resulting from the large-scale aggression of Azerbaijan," the ministry said from Yerevan.

The two ministers "have agreed to take the necessary measures to stabilize the situation", the note read. 

On Twitter, the Turkish foreign minister wrote: "Armenia stop provoking immediately"

and added that he had discussed with the Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov about the clashes that began last night on the border between the two countries. The head of diplomacy in Ankara called on Yerevan to "focus on peace negotiations and cooperation in the context of the reconciliation found with Azerbaijan".

The Armenian Ministry of Defense had reported

near the common border.

"On September 13 at 00:05, units of the Azerbaijani armed forces opened intensive fire with artillery and large arms against Armenian positions in the direction of the cities of Goris, Sotk and Dzhermuk," the official statement read. 

Tensions that never subsided along the sensitive border between the two states worsened last week, when Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing one of its soldiers in an exchange of artillery rounds in the east of the country;

accusations rejected by Baku who called them "a lie".

In August, recalls the Agi, Azerbaijan claimed to have lost a soldier.

The two neighbors fought two wars - in the 1990s and 2020 - for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave of Azerbaijan.

The Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.

The six weeks of fighting in autumn 2020, on the other hand, left over 6,500 deaths and resulted in a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

Under the agreement, Armenia has given up parts of the territory it has controlled for decades and Moscow has deployed around 2,000 peacekeepers to monitor the fragile truce.    

Representatives of the two countries worked with Russian mediators on the delimitation of borders

and on other aspects of relations between the two states of the former USSR.

The EU executive held four rounds of trilateral talks with senior Azerbaijani and Armenian officials aimed at promoting peace efforts and re-establishing links and freeing prisoners of war.

During talks in Brussels in May and April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan agreed to "foster discussions" on a future peace treaty.