MOSCOW – Azerbaijan and Armenia began talks on Friday for a limited ceasefire after nearly two weeks of heavy fighting over the disputed province, with the goal of achieving a minimum ceasefire to collect bodies from the battlefield and exchange prisoners.
But Azeri’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said in a televised speech on Friday that he was happy to negotiate, but that the prospects for a comprehensive peace deal had slowed after a compromise was reached.
“We are winning and regaining our territory and ensuring our territorial integrity,” Mr Aliyev said. “They leave our territory in peace.”
The ethnic Armenian siege of Azerbaijan, called the Normano-Karabakh, and the conflict surrounding it erupted late last month and threatened to flee Russia into a full-blown war; Turkey, a NATO member; And maybe Iran.
President Vladimir V. The Russian Foreign Ministry mediated the talks after Putin warned earlier this week that Russia could be forced to ratify a mutual defense agreement with Armenia if fighting escalates.
“We have a small country, barely visible on the map, but it could be the start of a giant war,” Irina Grigorian, a Russian literature teacher who fled Nagorno-Karabakh a week ago, said in a telephone interview on Friday.
Ms. After leaving the Gregorian Armenian capital, Yerevan, with five grandchildren for safety, in an apartment where some children were bombed, he said. He said he hoped a ceasefire would be maintained.
“Can’t they stop the war for at least a day or two?” She said. “Any negotiation is better than war.”
In a night-time telephone conversation with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Mr Putin suggested a limited treaty as a preliminary step. Mr Putin has invited the foreign ministers of the two countries for talks in Moscow.
The Kremlin said in a statement that it had “appealed to Putin to stop fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region from a humanitarian point of view. “The goal is to exchange the bodies of those people and the prisoners. The two sides were invited to Moscow for consultation on these issues with mediation by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the statement said.
The war ended in a ceasefire in the early 1990s, but after a massive settlement, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted for decades in a remote mountainous region of little geological importance. That changed when Turkey, which has been wrapping its muscles regionally in recent months, openly supported Azerbaijan, its ethnic Turkic ally, in the growth that began on September 27.
Mr Putin said this week that Russia would honor the defense agreement with Armenia if the fighting took place on Armenian territory rather than in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and its environs. The statement also raised the possibility of Russian intervention and called for an end to hostilities between the two groups.
Armenia said on Friday that 376 of its soldiers had been killed in today’s fighting. Azerbaijan does not issue body calculations.
Fighting on Friday Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian foreign ministers also prepared for talks in Moscow.
The Nagorno-Karabakh defense ministry said both armies fired artillery around midnight on Thursday and Friday, and hit populated areas on its territory.
On Thursday, a rocket artillery crashed into the roof of the Cathedral, the holy savior of the 19th-century Armenian Cathedral, in the mountain town of Shushi and partially destroyed it. The cathedral was also partially destroyed in the Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s and was later restored.
Azerbaijan’s state news media reported firing in two districts on Friday. The country’s attorney general said Friday that 31 civilians have been killed and 178 injured in artillery fires since the fighting began last month.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement on Friday condemning the violence in civilian areas. The commission estimated that 58 civilians, including children, had been killed by Thursday, while apartment buildings, schools and other civilian structures had been destroyed.
The statement called on the military to refrain from using cluster munitions, which are small bombs dropped over large areas and are particularly deadly to civilians. There is also a risk of spreading coronavirus from combat, the statement noted.
Fighting parties must “adhere to the principles of discrimination, proportion and caution” and avoid using explosive weapons in populated areas, said Commissioner Michelle Bachelet.
