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Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire starting Saturday to exchange prisoners and bodies of those killed in the conflict between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov .
The talks between the two sides were held in Moscow and were the first diplomatic contact between the enemies since fighting for the separatist enclave broke out on September 27, killing hundreds of people. The ceasefire begins at 12 pm local time (0800 GMT).
Lavrov, who mediated the negotiations in Moscow, announced the ceasefire after 10 hours of talks with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts. He also said that Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to start talks on resolving the conflict.
During the ceasefire, mediated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the parties will exchange corpses and prisoners, Lavrov said, reading a statement.
“The concrete parameters of the ceasefire will be agreed separately,” the statement said.
Russia’s top diplomat also said that Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to begin seeking a lasting solution to the territorial dispute.
“Azerbaijan and Armenia are starting substantive negotiations with the aim of achieving a peaceful solution as soon as possible,” Lavrov told reporters, adding that such talks will be mediated by the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE) negotiators.
Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and his Azeri counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov did not speak to reporters.
The mountainous enclave belongs to Azerbaijan under international law, but it broke apart in a war when the Soviet Union collapsed and is populated and ruled by ethnic Armenians.
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 was the worst since the 1991-94 war that killed some 30,000 people and ended with a ceasefire that has been repeatedly violated. Both sides accused each other of attacking residential areas and civil infrastructure.
In the early hours of Sunday, September 27, Armenia announced that it was declaring martial law, mobilizing its army and ordering civilians to take refuge. He claimed that his neighbor Azerbaijan had launched a military operation within a separatist region called Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan said it attacked only in response to the Armenian bombardment.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as a territory of Azerbaijan, but it has a predominantly Armenian population that has resisted Azerbaijani rule for more than a century. In 1991, the region of some 150,000 people declared its independence and has since ruled itself, with the support of Armenia, as the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked mountainous region within Azerbaijan’s borders, has been a source of disputes since before the creation of the Soviet Union. Tensions were suppressed when both Armenia and Azerbaijan were Soviet states, but resurfaced when the cold war ended and Communist Party control of the bloc was dissolved.
A war between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces ended in a ceasefire in 1994, with Armenia in full control of Nagorno-Karabakh and other surrounding enclaves of Azerbaijani territory. Azerbaijan is predominantly Muslim and Armenia is predominantly Christian, and some elements on both sides seek to pose the conflict in religious terms.
Michael Safi
Azerbaijan said on Friday that 31 Azeri civilians had been killed and 168 injured since September 27. It has not released information on military casualties.
Nagorno-Karabakh said 376 of its military personnel and 22 civilians had died since the beginning of the conflict.
Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, had been the subject of heavy bombardment. Residents were staying in shelters, some of which were in the basements of apartment buildings.
Armenian officials alleged that Turkey was involved in the conflict and is sending Syrian mercenaries to fight on the side of Azerbaijan. Turkey has publicly supported Azerbaijan in the conflict, but has denied sending fighters to the region.
Turkey said on Friday that efforts by France, the United States and Russia to end violence between Azeri and Armenian forces over Nagorno-Karabakh were destined to fail unless they ensured the withdrawal of Armenian forces from the enclave.
