Home WORLD NEWS Russia offers to help demarcate Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Russia offers to help demarcate Armenia-Azerbaijan border

by Bioreports
30 views
russia-offers-to-help-demarcate-armenia-azerbaijan-border

Move by Moscow comes after Armenia accused Azerbaijan of sending troops across the border last week.

Moscow has offered to help mediate demarcation negotiations after Armenia accused Azerbaijan of a border incursion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Armenia accused Azerbaijan of sending troops across the border last week, highlighting the fragility of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that halted six weeks of fighting between ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces last year.

Azerbaijan has denied crossing the frontier and said its forces only defended their side.

But Armenia said on Friday that Azerbaijan had failed to fulfil a promise to withdraw troops that had crossed the border.

“Russia has offered first of all to provide assistance with the delimitation and demarcation of the border,” Lavrov told reporters during a visit to Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, on Wednesday.

He added that Moscow had proposed setting up a joint Armenian-Azeri commission, with Russia possibly participating as a consultant or mediator.

Armen Grigoryan, secretary of the Armenian government’s security council, said demarcation work could not start until Azeri troops had left Armenian territory, TASS news agency reported.

However, Armenia’s defence ministry said earlier on Wednesday that talks between the Armenian and Azeri defence officials were under way, the Interfax news agency reported.

“In the absence of a peaceful settlement within a reasonable timeframe – in the event that Azerbaijan’s military does not return to its original positions without any preconditions – the Armenian armed forces have the right to resolve the issue by other means, including by force,” the ministry said.

Moscow helped secure a ceasefire in November after fighting saw Azeri troops drive ethnic Armenians out of swaths of territory they had controlled since the 1990s in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Russia, which has a military base in Armenia, sent peacekeepers to the area last year to help enforce the ceasefire.

It has strong ties and a mutual defence pact with Armenia but is also on friendly terms with Azerbaijan.

You may also like

Leave a Comment