Armenia accused Azerbaijan of controlling 10 km of its territory during the recent battles.
On Wednesday, Azerbaijan offered to return the bodies of 100 Armenian soldiers said to have been killed in recent border clashes between the two countries.
“Azerbaijan is calling for a ceasefire and is ready to unilaterally hand over the bodies of 100 Armenian soldiers to Armenia,” the Azerbaijan POW Committee said in a statement, citing the AFP.
For his part, the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, announced Wednesday that 105 soldiers have been killed in the last two days’ battles with Azerbaijan.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said new clashes erupted between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces on Wednesday morning, the day after dozens were killed in the heaviest fighting between the two neighbors since 2020.
Each country blamed the other for the renewed fighting that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to demand calm.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said in a statement that Azerbaijan used artillery, mortars and small arms in its attack on Wednesday morning.
He added: “The situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is still tense,” reiterating Armenia’s position that Azerbaijan has attacked its sovereign land.
Earlier, the Director of the Fourth Department of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Denis Gonchar, announced that Moscow is in contact with Baku and Yerevan and is taking steps to try to stabilize the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani borders as soon as possible.
“We are in close contact with Baku and Yerevan. We are taking the necessary measures with the aim of stabilizing the situation as soon as possible,” the official told Sputnik.
Clashes erupted Tuesday night on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, causing casualties in the armies of the two countries, and the two sides accused each other of initiating the escalation.
By this morning, the two sides agreed on a ceasefire, following a conversation between Russian President Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan.
Interestingly, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed, under the auspices of Russia, a ceasefire agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh, which entered into force on November 10, 2020.
–
