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A ceasefire between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh is in effect after an agreement was reached in Moscow to allow the exchange of prisoners and corpses.
It was not immediately clear how long the ceasefire, which started at noon local time (9 a.m. Irish Time), would last and how effective it would be.
There were reports from both sides of the fighting continuing in the run-up, with the two countries also alleged serious breaches after it began.
The Moscow ceasefire talks were the first diplomatic contact between the two sides since fighting broke out over the mountainous enclave on September 27, killing hundreds of people.
The enclave is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it is populated and ruled by ethnic Armenians.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who helped mediate between the two sides, said in a statement in the early hours of this morning after more than 10 hours of negotiations that the ceasefire had been agreed on on humanitarian grounds. .
The International Committee of the Red Cross would help make the truce work, he said.
“The specific terms of the ceasefire have yet to be agreed,” said Lavrov, who said Armenia and Azerbaijan had also agreed to enter into what he called substantive peace talks.
Those talks will take place under the auspices of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), he said.
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Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and his Azeri counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov did not speak to journalists in Moscow after reaching the ceasefire agreement.
But Mnatsakanyan later paid tribute on Armenian state television to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he said had played a key role in making sure the talks took place and had personally intervened to help reach an agreement.
Turkey, which has strongly backed Baku, welcomed the deal but said much more was needed.
“The humanitarian ceasefire is an important first step, but it will not represent a lasting solution,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“Turkey stressed that it will support any solution approved by Azerbaijan. Turkey will continue to support Azerbaijan on the field and at the table.”
The Azeri Defense Ministry in a statement accused ethnic Armenian forces of bombing populated areas before the ceasefire, an accusation Armenia denied.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry, which said forces in the enclave had been ordered to halt fighting since noon, in turn accused the Azeris of using attack drones on a populated settlement inside Armenia and said it appeared that Baku was trying to change the facts on the ground before. the truce took hold.
Ethnic Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh also accused the Azeris of firing missiles at Stepanakert, the region’s largest city, but said there was no data on casualties yet.
Baku denied having bombed or used drones against civilian areas.
Nagorno-Karabakh officials said 28 members of their defense forces had been killed in fighting since yesterday.
The resumption of fighting in the decades-long conflict has raised fears of a broader war in Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defense pact with Armenia.
The clashes have also raised concerns about the safety of pipelines that carry Azerbaijani oil and gas to Europe.
The fighting is the worst since the 1991-1994 war that killed some 30,000 people and ended with a ceasefire that has been repeatedly violated.
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