OUR Armenia as well as Azerbaijan accused each other today of new clashes on the border of the two countries, shortly before the start of negotiations in Washington aims to end a conflict that has killed hundreds of people in recent months.

The foreign ministers of the two rival Caucasian countries will travel to the United States today for talks under the auspices of their American counterpart, Anthony Blinken.

Less than a week earlier, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pledged “not to resort to the use of force” during a summit in Russia attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But on the night of Sunday to Monday, “units of the armed forces of Azerbaijan opened fire (…) on Armenian positions located in the eastern sector of the border,” the Armenian Defense Ministry said in a statement, saying that “there were no casualties.”

For its part, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry accused the Armenian forces of shelling positions in Baku “with light weapons of various calibers” without any casualties.

Kremlin: avoid escalation

The Kremlin called on Yerevan and Baku to “avoid any actions that could lead to an escalation of tension.”

In September, clashes between the two countries killed at least 286 people. The US-brokered truce ended the worst fighting between the two Caucasian neighbors since the 2020 war.

Over the past three decades, Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over control of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority enclave that unilaterally declared independence from Baku.

The 2020 war claimed over 6,500 lives and ended after a Russian-brokered ceasefire. Under it, Armenia ceded territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow sent some 2,000 Russian troops to enforce the ceasefire.

Since the 2020 war, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in difficult peace negotiations, with many parallel initiatives being implemented.

The EU has repeatedly invited Pashinyan and Aliyev to Brussels, and the US has invited the foreign ministers of the two countries for talks in September.

Russia, which sees the Caucasus as its backyard, is suspicious of these efforts, fearing that Westerners want to expand their influence in the region.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP.}