Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Armenia Ready to Cooperate with 'Minsk' for Ceasefire


Fri 02 Oct 2020 | 04:03 PM
Nawal Sayed

Armenia expressed its readiness, on Friday, to work with the mediation group, co-chaired by Russia, the United States and France, to reach a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is witnessing battles between the Azerbaijani army and the two separatists with the support of Yerevan six days ago.

The two rivals in the Caucasus have been locked in a bitter conflict over the Karabakh region since the collapse of the Soviet Union when the ethnic-Armenian province split from Azerbaijan in 1991.

On Sunday, the most violent clashes broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in years.

In a joint call, Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron urged the parties to return to negotiations aimed at settling this long-standing conflict.

"We are ready to deal with the countries that co-chair the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for a ceasefire based on the 1994-1995 agreements," the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement the day after this invitation.

About 200 people were confirmed killed since Sunday, including more than 30 civilians.

It is feared that if a direct war breaks out between Muslim Azerbaijan and predominantly Christian Armenia, two regional powers, Russia and Turkey, will be drawn into the conflict, each of which supports the other side in the conflict.

Armenia and Karabakh declared martial law and general military mobilization on Sunday, while Azerbaijan imposed military provisions and curfews in major cities.

The talks aimed at settling the conflict, which began with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, have stalled significantly since the 1994 ceasefire agreement.