YERWAN, Armenia (AP) – Armenian officials and Azerbaijan on Saturday accused each other of violating the peace agreement that ended six weeks of heavy fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Azerbaijani leader slammed the Armenians with an “iron fist.”
The new confrontation is the first significant violation of the November 10 peace deal struck by Russia, with Azerbaijan occupying Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding lands that had been occupied by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century.
Separatist officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said Azerbaijani forces launched a late-night attack on Friday in which three local ethnic Armenian servicemen were wounded.
Russian peacekeepers deployed in the region to monitor the peace deal have been reported to have violated the ceasefire in the Ghadrat area on Friday. The Russian Defense Ministry did not blame in a report issued on Saturday.
Days later, the Armenian Defense Ministry also accused the Azerbaijani army of attacking south of Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Saturday reacted by blaming Armenia for the new clashes and “threatening to break the head with an iron fist.”
“Armenia should not try to start it again,” Aliyev said during a meeting with top diplomats from the United States and France, who have been trying to mediate in the decades-long conflict. He should be very careful and should not plan any military action. At this point, we will destroy them completely. It should not be a secret to anyone. “
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said in a statement late Saturday evening that its forces had thwarted Armenian “provocations” and restored a ceasefire.
Armenian officials said the only settlements in the Gadrut region were fighting near the villages of Hin Tagar and Khattabird, which are still controlled by Armenian forces. They noted that both villages were completely surrounded by Azerbaijani forces, controlling the only road leading to them.
Nagorno-Karabakh is located in Azerbaijan, but was under the control of an ethnic Armenian army backed by Armenia, where the separatist war ended in 1994. This battle left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and the surrounding area in the hands of the Armenians.
The fighting, which began in late September and killed more than 5,600 people on both sides, pushed Azerbaijani forces into Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing Armenia to accept last month’s peace deal that left Azerbaijan largely a separatist territory. Surrounding areas. Russia has deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers for at least five years to monitor the peace deal and facilitate the return of refugees.
The victory came on Thursday with a military parade in Azerbaijan, attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and attended by more than 1,000,000 troops, dozens of military vehicles and a flyover of fighter jets.
The peace deal came as a shock to the people of Armen, who protested demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Pashinyan, who refused to step down. He called the peace agreement a bitter but necessary step, which prevented Azerbaijan from capturing all Nagorno-Karabakh.
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The report was contributed by Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Ida Sultanova in London.
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