Yerevan, March 28 (AFP\/APP): Armenia on Monday called on Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh to take “concrete steps” after Azerbaijani forces seized control of a strategic village in the breakaway region.<\/p>\n
In a new flare-up of tensions in the region amid Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, Azerbaijani troops on Thursday captured the village of Farukh in Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n
The area is under the responsibility of Russian peacekeepers, who deployed in Karabakh under a Moscow-brokered ceasefire that ended weeks of fighting over the region by Armenia and Azerbaijan in late 2020.<\/p>\n
Russia’s defence ministry said Sunday that Azerbaijan had pulled back its forces from the village, but Baku said its forces remained in control of the area.<\/p>\n
Armenia’s foreign ministry in a statement on Monday demanded an “investigation into the Russian peacekeeping contingent’s actions during the Azerbaijani incursion,” confirming that Azerbaijani troops remained in the area.<\/p>\n
“We expect Russia’s peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh to take concrete steps to put an end to Azerbaijani units’ incursion into the zone of responsibility of peacekeepers,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
Later on Monday, the country’s Security Council accused Azerbaijan of “preparing the ground for fresh provocations and an offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh.”<\/p>\n
It called on Baku to “immediately start talks on a comprehensive peace treaty.”<\/p>\n
“International mechanisms of deterrence must be activated to avoid a fresh military escalation in the region and ethnic cleansing,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
A major flare-up in Karabakh could pose a challenge for Russia with its forces deeply engaged in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Moscow deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers in the region after the 2020 war over the long-contested enclave which claimed more than 6,500 lives.<\/p>\n
Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yerevan, March 28 (AFP\/APP): Armenia on Monday called on Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh to take “concrete steps” after Azerbaijani forces seized control of a strategic village in the breakaway region. In a new flare-up of tensions in the region amid Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, […]<\/p>\n
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