Nagorno-Karabakh: Russia agrees to aid if fighting reaches Armenia
01 November, 2020
Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov sat down for face-to-face talks aimed at reining in greater than a month of clashes on Friday, but failed to agree a ceasefire
Russia said on Saturday it could provide "necessary" assist with Yerevan in its conflict with over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh if fighting reached Armenia's territory.
"Russia will render Yerevan all necessary assistance if clashes happen on the territory of Armenia," the foreign ministry in Moscow said, calling on the warring sides to immediately halt fire.
Earlier Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to get started "urgent" consultations on security assistance and came after Armenia and Azerbaijan didn't agree a brand new ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during talks in Geneva on Friday.
Russia has a military base in Armenia and has a defence treaty with Yerevan.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have already been locked in a bitter conflict over Karabakh since Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control of the mountainous province in a 1990s war that left 30,000 persons dead.
The existing clashes broke out on September 27 and fighting has persisted despite the repeated international attempts to secure a ceasefire.
In his letter to Mr Putin, Mr Pashinyan said that hostilities were consistently getting nearer to Armenia's borders and reiterated that Azerbaijan's ally Turkey was backing Baku, in line with the statement.
Friday's talks lead to agreement on measures to defuse tensions, including vowing never to target civilians, mediators said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov sat down for face-to-face talks targeted at reining in greater than a month of clashes in the disputed region which may have killed more than a thousand people.
Mediators from France, Russia and the united states - known as the Minsk Group - said in a statement that they had urged the sides to fully implement a previously agreed ceasefire.
Both sides, the statement said, had "engaged in an open and substantive exchange of views aimed at clarifying their negotiating positions" on sticking points in the ceasefire agreement reached in Moscow on October 10.
That and two subsequent ceasefire agreements - the newest one negotiated in Washington under a week ago - have didn't halt the bloodshed.
While Friday's statement made no reference to fresh ceasefire commitments, it said the sides had "decided to have a number of steps on an urgent basis".
They had focused on "not deliberately target civilian populations or non-military objects relative to international humanitarian law," it said.
They had also agreed to "actively engage in the implementation of the recovery and exchange of remains on the battlefield".
Both sides also said that within weekly they might deliver lists of currently detained war prisoners to the Red Cross "for the purposes of providing access and eventual exchange".
And finally they focused on provide written comments and questions linked to discussions around introducing mechanisms to verify if a ceasefire had been upheld - seen as a key priority in the talks.
Earlier this week Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said he had not been against the brand new round of talks in Geneva but seemed to downplay their significance.
"There have been a whole lot of meaningless meetings in the last 28 years," he said.
A lot more than 1,200 persons from both sides have been reported dead since the fighting began, and thousands forced from their homes.
Azerbaijan hasn't released military casualty figures and the death toll is thought to be higher, with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying last week close to 5,000 people had been killed.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com
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