Azerbaijan said Tuesday its military managed to thwart attacks by Armenian troops after the worst fighting between the nemesis since their brief but brutal war in 2020.
Armenia said nearly 50 of its soldiers were killed in overnight fighting, which Russia says it stopped by brokering a truce between the historic rivals.
“Provocations by Armenian forces on the border have been prevented and all necessary goals have been achieved,” President Ilham Aliyev’s office said in a statement after its meeting with the military leadership.
After fighting broke out, Armenia asked world leaders for help and accused Azerbaijan of wanting to advance on its territory.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called leaders of both protagonists on Tuesday, with his spokesman saying Washington will “push for an immediate cessation of fighting and a peace settlement” between the neighbors.
The fighting was the worst since the end of a 2020 war between the former Soviet republics over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, which has killed more than 6,500 people on both sides.
It came as Yerevan’s closest ally Moscow – which deployed thousands of peacekeepers in the region after the war – was distracted by its six-month invasion of Ukraine.
Russia said it had ended the clashes and the foreign ministry said a ceasefire was agreed as of 9:00 a.m. Moscow time (0600 GMT).
The Armenian Defense Ministry later said that the clashes had subsided but the situation at the border was “extremely tense”.
After fighting broke out, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Blinken to demand “an appropriate response” to “Azerbaijan’s aggressive actions.”
He later told lawmakers that at least 49 Armenian soldiers were killed in the flare-up.
– “Subversive acts” –
Azerbaijan said it also had casualties but did not specify the number of those killed.
The Defense Ministry in Yerevan said clashes began early Tuesday when Armenian territory was shelled by artillery, mortars and drones towards the cities of Goris, Sotk and Jermuk.
“The enemy is trying to advance into Armenian territory,” it said in a statement.
However, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of “large-scale subversive acts” near Dashkesan, Kelbajar and Lachin districts and said its forces were taking “limited and targeted steps to neutralize Armenian firing positions”.
Baku’s longtime political and military sponsor, Turkey, blamed Armenia and urged it to “focus on peace negotiations” instead.
Iran, which borders both countries, urged “restraint” and a “peaceful resolution” to the fighting.
The European Union, France and the United States have expressed concern at the escalation and called for an end to the fighting.
Before the ceasefire was announced, the Security Council of Armenia asked for military assistance from Moscow, which under the treaty is obliged to defend Armenia in the event of a foreign invasion.
– “Russia in bad shape” –
Armenian political scientist Tatul Hakobyan said the escalation in fighting was a result of the “dead end” at the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
“Azerbaijan wants to force Armenia to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” he told AFP news agency.
“The war in Ukraine has changed the balance of power in the region and Russia – which is a guarantor of peace in the region – is in a very bad shape. In this situation, Azerbaijan wants to get concessions from Armenia as soon as possible,” he added.
Last week, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing one of its soldiers in a border shootout.
In August, Azerbaijan said it had lost a soldier and the Karabakh army said two of its troops were killed and more than a dozen wounded.
The neighbors fought two wars — in the 1990s and 2020 — over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan.
The six weeks of brutal fighting in the fall of 2020 ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Under the deal, Armenia ceded parts of territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow dispatched about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.
At EU-brokered talks in Brussels in May and April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan agreed to “push ahead talks” on a future peace deal.
Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.
