Azerbaijan announced on Wednesday that it had taken control of several strategic heights in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region with Armenia.
The Azerbaijani army said that it launched an operation dubbed “Revenge” in response to “the illegal terrorist movements of the Armenian armed groups in the territory of Azerbaijan”, which led to the death of an Azerbaijani soldier.
For its part, Armenia called on the international community to stop Azerbaijan’s “aggressive” actions in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, where an escalation of violence has left three people dead, raising the specter of the 2020 war.
“Yerevan calls on the international community to take measures to stop Azerbaijan’s aggressive behavior and actions and activate mechanisms to achieve this,” the Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Reactions
In a first reaction to the recent clashes, the spokesman for the European Union Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said in a statement, “It is necessary to reduce the escalation, fully respect the ceasefire and return to the negotiating table to search for negotiated solutions.”
As for the Russian Defense Ministry, it accused Azerbaijan of violating the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh and stressed that it is working to “stabilize” the situation in the disputed region.