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Armenia and Azerbaijan announced tonight, Saturday, that they had reached an agreement on a new humanitarian armistice in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, starting at midnight.
The agreement was confirmed by the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministries, as they confirmed, in two separate statements, that the armistice agreement had been reached “as of 00:00 hours on October 18 local time.”
The new agreement comes after Azerbaijan and Armenia violated a previous ceasefire agreement concluded with Russian mediation on October 10, which provided for a full ceasefire for humanitarian purposes.
The two sides reached the agreement after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed developments in the conflict zone in the Nagorno Karabakh region on Saturday in telephone conversations he held with his Azerbaijani counterparts, Zhihon Bayramov, and the Armenian Zograb Mnatsakyanian.
The statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia indicated that the armistice decision was made in compliance with the joint declaration issued on October 1 by the presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin, the United States, Donald Trump, France, Emmanuel Macron, and the declaration of the heads of the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued on October 5 and the Moscow Declaration of October 10.
Earlier in the day, Moscow reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held telephone conversations with his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts, during which the need for strict compliance with the terms of the Statement issued in Moscow by the Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers on October 10 calling for a complete ceasefire for humanitarian purposes. “
According to the ministry, Lavrov highlighted the continuing importance of the joint statement issued on October 1 by the presidents of Russia, the United States and France. As well as highlighting the importance of the agreement reached in Moscow on the beginning of substantive negotiations, with the aim of achieving a peace agreement as soon as possible based on the basic principles mediated by the heads of the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Safety. Cooperation in Europe.
This comes after the Azerbaijani government announced that at least 13 people were killed and 52 others injured in missile attacks on Ganja, the country’s second-largest city, from the territory of Armenia.
On September 27, armed clashes broke out on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in Nagorno Karabakh and adjacent areas, in the most dangerous escalation between the two sides in more than 20 years.
On October 10, Azerbaijan and Armenia reached an agreement at the level of foreign ministers with the mediation of Russia to declare a ceasefire for humanitarian purposes, but the two sides later exchanged accusations of violating it.
AzerbaijanArmeniaNagorno Karabakh