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Russia and Azerbaijan on Sunday (27 March) traded barbs over the movement of Azeri forces in Nagorno-Karabakh where a simmering dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared into a six-week war in 2020.
Azeri troops in 2020 drove ethnic Armenian forces out of swathes of territory they had controlled since the 1990s in and around Nagorno-Karabakh before Russia brokered a ceasefire.
Russia said on Saturday it was deeply concerned about a rise in tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh and called for calm after what it said were breaches of the 2020 ceasefire brokered by President Vladimir Putin.
Russia said Azerbaijan had violated the agreement by allowing its forces to enter a zone policed by Russian peacekeepers near the village of Farrukh but that Azerbaijan had by Sunday withdrawn the soldiers.https://twitter.com/middleeasttime/status/1508281159041445888
Azerbaijan, though, denied the Russian statement.
"There has been no change in the positions of the Azeri army in the village of Farrukh, which is part of the sovereign territories of our country," the Azeri defence ministry said.
"The information about the withdrawal of units of the Azerbaijani Army from those positions does not reflect the truth. Our army is in full control of the operational situation," Azerbaijan's defence ministry said in a statement.Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but is populated and, until recently, was fully controlled by ethnic Armenians after a bloody war in the 1990s which saw them seize other outlying regions belonging to Azerbaijan too.
Attempts at ceasefires brokered by France, Russia and the United States — which together lead the “Minsk Group” that sought for years to end the conflict — repeatedly failed over recent weeks.
In October and November 2020 Azerbaijan fought a war, regaining control of large swathes of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the decisive help of Turkey, which supplied military drones.
The war ended under a Russia-brokered ceasefire and with the deployment of Russian peacekeepers.
Azerbaijan and Turkey celebrated the victory.
Armenia is Russia’s ally under the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) together with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Russia however has no obligation to intervene militarily in Nagorno-Karabakh in defense of Armenia, unless the territory of Armenia proper is attacked.
(Edited by Georgi Gotev)
