France calls on Azerbaijan to return to observing the ceasefire between Baku and Yerevan. This was announced following a telephone conversation between the heads of state Emmanuel Macron and Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday, September 13, at the Elysee Palace.
“In a telephone conversation with President Aliyev, President Macron stressed the need to return to the observance of the ceasefire,” France Press quoted the Elysee Palace as saying.
Earlier, at an extraordinary meeting of the Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), it was proposed to send Secretary General Stanislav Zas to the zone of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict to prepare a report to the heads of state.
On the night of September 13, the ministries of defense of Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of shelling the border areas. Both sides announced the presence of victims due to a new round of escalation. Later, the parties reached an agreement on a ceasefire in the border areas.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that 49 Armenian soldiers were killed during the night battles with the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. He emphasized that this is a preliminary figure.
The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, for its part, announced the death of 50 of its servicemen.
The Armenian authorities also said that Pashinyan had contacted Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone. In particular, the Armenian prime minister “presented the details of the provocative, aggressive actions of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces that began at midnight” and called the actions of the Azerbaijani side unacceptable. He pointed to the importance of an adequate response from the international community.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have disputed ownership of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988. Then the region, which is inhabited mainly by Armenians, announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR. During the military conflict of 1992-1994, Baku lost control over Karabakh. In September 2020, Baku took control of a number of settlements during military operations.
In November 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the participation of Russia, signed an agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. The document, among other things, provided for the introduction of Russian peacekeepers into the region, the exchange of prisoners between the parties to the conflict, the transfer by Armenia to Azerbaijan of a number of regions of the region and the return of refugees to Karabakh.
