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YEREVAN: The Kremlin issued a new call for an end to hostilities in and around Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday after Moscow’s foreign intelligence chief said the mountainous enclave could become a launching pad for Islamist militants to enter to Russia.
Moscow voiced alarm after the deadliest fighting in more than 25 years between ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces broke out on a 10th day, though French news agency AFP later said Armenia had offered concessions only if Azerbaijan was ready to do what.
AFP did not give details of the offer it said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had made.
Azerbaijan has said it will stop fighting only if Armenia sets a timetable to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh, which according to international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is populated and ruled by ethnic Armenians.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called for a halt to the fighting and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed “serious concern over the unprecedented escalation” in a phone call with Iran’s Foreign Minister.
Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service, said the conflict was attracting people he described as mercenaries and terrorists from the Middle East.
“We are talking about hundreds and already thousands of radicals hoping to make money in a new Karabakh war,” Naryshkin said in a statement.
He warned that the South Caucasus region could become “a new launching pad for international terrorist organizations” from where militants could enter states like Russia.
His comments were published after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country is a close ally of Azerbaijan, urged Moscow to be more active in establishing peace.
New fight
Mediation efforts led by Russia, France and the United States have failed to prevent intermittent outbreaks of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh despite a ceasefire that ended a 1991-1994 war that killed some 30,000 people.
The resumption of fighting since September 27 has raised concerns that Turkey and Russia, which has a defense pact with Armenia, could be sucked into the conflict in the South Caucasus.
Iran, which borders Azerbaijan and Armenia, is also concerned about the conflict and President Hassan Rouhani stressed the importance of peace in the region in a phone call with Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday.
In recent clashes, Armenia said that Azerbaijan launched a tank and artillery attack on a southern part of the line of contact that divides ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces.
Nagorno-Karabakh said four cluster bombs had exploded in the center of Stepanakert, its main administrative center.
Azerbaijan says Azerbaijani cities outside the conflict zone have come under attack, bringing the fighting closer to the territory from which pipelines transport Azeri oil and gas to Europe.
Both sides say the other has hit civilian areas.
Each denies targeting civilians.
Nagorno-Karabakh said 244 of its military and 19 civilians had died since September 27 and many more had been injured.
The Azeri prosecutor’s office said 27 Azeri civilians had been killed in the new fighting.
Azerbaijan has not disclosed information on its military casualties.
In an interview with the Russian news agency RIA, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was “the main instigator and initiator of the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
Reiterating the accusations first made by French President Emmanuel Macron that Turkey has sent Syrian jihadists to fight the conflict, Assad said: “Damascus can confirm this.”
Assad offered no evidence of his accusation against Turkey, which is backing rebels trying to topple him in Syria’s civil war.
Ankara did not immediately respond, but described similar accusations as part of Armenia’s attempts to create “dark propaganda” about Turkey.
