[ad_1]
Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of violating the ceasefire aimed at ending the fighting in the Nagorno Karabakh region, shortly after its entry into force on Monday.
Yesterday, Sunday, the US State Department announced that Yerevan and Baku once again pledged to commit to a “humanitarian ceasefire” in Nagorno Karabakh, starting Monday, after negotiations in Washington.
On Saturday, United States Undersecretary of State Stephen Pegon met with the foreign ministers of the two countries, the United States Department of State reported in a statement, adding that “the humanitarian ceasefire will enter effective October 26 at eight o’clock local time (4:00 GMT). ” .
Baku accuses Yerevan of violating the armistice, and the latter denies
In the early hours of the morning after the third armistice came into force, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of “seriously violating” the ceasefire in the Nagorno Karabakh region, announced on Sunday night under the auspices of the United States.
And the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry announced that Armenia bombed Azerbaijani residential areas in Aghdam, Tartar and Aghabadi.
On the other hand, Yerevan denied the allegations, confirming at the same time that the Azerbaijani side fired artillery at the northeastern combat sites of the “Artsakh Defense Army” around 8:45 am this morning.
Furthermore, the Defense Ministry of the separatist region denied that Armenia had violated the armistice. He said in a statement on Monday: “After the United States reached a humanitarian ceasefire agreement, which was scheduled to come into effect on October 26 at 08:00, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry quickly accused to the Armenian side of a flagrant violation of the ceasefire until before 08:00, but this information was removed after a while. “
Furthermore, the Ministry announced that the Karabakh forces are strictly complying with the agreement reached, considering the Baku accusations to be “mere provocations”.
A third “humanitarian truce”
This came after Armenia and Azerbaijan again agreed yesterday to commit to a “humanitarian truce” in the ongoing conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. It will go into effect today, the US State Department announced, after previous attempts to stop fighting in the region failed.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan separately on Friday, in a further attempt to end the nearly month-long fighting that Russian President Vladimir Putin said it had probably killed 5,000 people.
In a separate statement, the “Minsk Group” of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which was formed under the leadership of France, Russia and the United States to mediate the conflict, said it would meet again on 29 October to discuss the issue of Nagorno Karabakh.
It is noteworthy that the region has seen since September 27 the heaviest fighting since the 1990s, when some 30 thousand people died in a war that lasted from 1991 to 1994 due to the effort of Nagorno Karabakh, which has a majority of Armenian origin, for completely separating from Azerbaijan, with the support of the Armenians.
