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Yerevan (AFP)
On Saturday, Russia expressed its willingness to provide “necessary” assistance to Armenia, which faces a conflict with Azerbaijan in the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh in case the battles spill over to Armenian lands.
Russia’s announcement, which renewed the call for a ceasefire, came after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan asked President Vladimir Putin to initiate “urgent” consultations on the help Moscow could provide to Yerevan to ensure your safety.
And Pashinyan sent his message after Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to reach a new ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh during talks in Geneva on Friday. These announcements raise fears of escalating fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Russia has a military base in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, and has a collective security treaty with Yerevan. But it has said in the past that it did not include the breakaway Nagorno Karabakh region.
“Russia will provide Yerevan with all necessary assistance in case of direct clashes on the territory of Armenia,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
At the same time, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, explained to Russian television that “concrete forms” of assistance will be discussed.
In a letter to Putin, Pashinyan said on Saturday morning that the fighting was closing in on the border with Armenia and again accused Turkey of supporting Azerbaijan.
He asked Moscow for assistance, talking about the good relations between the two countries and the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance that binds the two countries since 1997.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry announced that “the Armenian prime minister asked the Russian president to initiate urgent consultations with a view to determining the nature and amount of assistance that the Russian Federation could provide to Armenia to ensure its security.”
– Risky intervention –
Carrie Kavanaugh, a former US ambassador, felt that an expanded military intervention in the conflict was not in Moscow’s interest.
“It is impossible to measure the risks, but an intervention by the Russian or Turkish forces at this stage would lead to a significant escalation of the conflict,” he told AFP.
He added that the Russian army “could withdraw its forces from its garrisons in Gyumri to ensure the security of the Armenian borders or provide assistance to refugees who fled the fighting.”
Hikmat Hajiyev, diplomatic adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, declined to comment in contact with Agence France-Presse.
The Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Zahrab Manatsakanyan, and of Azerbaijan, Ceyhun Bayramov, met in Geneva on Friday to try to find a way out of this crisis, but to no avail.
The French, Russian and American mediators meeting in the framework of the “Minsk Group” said in a statement issued late Friday that the warring parties had agreed on a series of measures, in particular a promise “not to deliberately attack the civilian population or bombard non-military targets. “
However, the Nagorno-Karabakh “Defense Ministry” accused Azerbaijan on Saturday of bombing the main cities of this breakaway region, Stepanakert and the nearby strategic city of Shusha.
The ministry noted “civilian casualties in Shusha.” For its part, Baku rejected the Stepanakert bombing accusations.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have faced a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh since Yerevan-backed Armenian separatists took control of this mountainous region in the 1990s after a war that left 30,000 dead.
The conflict resumed on September 27, and fighting continues despite international attempts to achieve a ceasefire.
The two parties to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to a ceasefire three times during talks brokered by Russia, France and the United States, but they did not last long.
The partial figures indicated that more than 1,250 people, including more than 130 civilians, had been killed since fighting resumed, which is the worst since the war in the 1990s, but the actual number may be much higher. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the possibility that the death toll is close to 5,000.
© 2020 AFP
