Status: 08/03/2022 10:11 p.m
A ceasefire has been in force in the South Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh since 2020. Now the already fragile agreement has been broken. The conflicting parties Armenia and Azerbaijan unanimously reported new clashes.
In the South Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh, there have apparently been new clashes between the conflicting parties Armenia and Azerbaijan. Both Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities confirmed the clashes.
The Defense Ministry in Azerbaijan said Armenian fighters tried to occupy a hill in the region, Reuters news agency reported. State-owned forces would have repulsed this attack. Several Armenians and a soldier from Azerbaijan were killed. The dpa news agency reported, citing Azerbaijani information, that the killed soldier died as a result of shelling from the area that has been controlled by Russian peacekeeping troops since the end of the war in November 2020.
Mutual accusations of breaching the ceasefire
According to Reuters, the Armenian Foreign Ministry also said there had been an attack in Nagorno-Karabakh. However, this had come from Azerbaijani forces. Armenian soldiers have become the target of drone fire. Both sides accuse each other of breaking the ceasefire that has been in effect since the end of the war in 2020. According to Armenian information, at least one member of its own army was killed and eight other people were injured.
Russia also sees responsibility for the new clashes on the part of Azerbaijan, as the Russian news agency Interfax reported. In the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia is supported by Russia, while Azerbaijan is supported by Turkey.
A conflict for decades
The conflict over the region flared up after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, in which Nagorno-Karabakh held the status of an autonomous region of the USSR. With the declaration of independence of Armenia and Azerbaijan, both states claimed the approximately 12,000 square kilometer area for themselves. According to international law, the area mostly inhabited by Armenians belongs to Azerbaijan.
In 1992, war broke out over the area, killing around 30,000 and displacing hundreds of thousands over the next two years. The war ended in 1994 – provisionally with an Armenian victory. In 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured large areas of the region. At least 6,500 people died in the fighting, which lasted around six weeks. The heavy fighting ended with the signing of a ceasefire in November 2020, which has been repeatedly broken since it was signed.