Source : The EurAsian Times
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According to the latest reports, 49 Armenian soldiers were killed in nighttime attacks by Azerbaijani forces. Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Earlier, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov held a telephone conversation on Tuesday with US Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried on the border situation with Armenia, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said.
“On September 13, 2022, a phone conversation took place between Jeyhun Bayramov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Karen Donfried, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States of America for European and Eurasian Affairs.
Ongoing clashes and tension as a result of large-scale provocation by Armenia were discussed during the phone conversation,” the statement said.
Bayramov informed Donfried about the situation on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border and the measures taken to prevent military threats in Azerbaijan. The minister noted that Azerbaijan was not interested in increasing military tensions in the region as the country was carrying out large-scale restoration and construction works there.
Donfried expressed her concern about the border hostilities and urged parties to stop military clashes.
Yerevan said the Azerbaijani military shelled the territory of Armenia late on Monday using artillery and drones. The Armenian Defense Ministry said there were casualties on the Armenian side.
Baku said that the Armenian military fired at the positions of the Azerbaijani troops on the border and that there was a clash. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry also reported losses in its ranks.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a 22-day war over the mountainous region in the fall of 2020. It ended in a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw the Armenian-dominated self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh cede parts of Nagorno-Karabakh under its control to the neighbor.
Meanwhile, Iran has expressed its readiness to help settle the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and is calling for restraint and resolution of disagreements through peaceful means and based on international law, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani “expressed Iran’s readiness to provide any assistance needed to resolve the disagreements between its two neighbors,” the statement read.
Iran considers any change to the borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia as “unacceptable,” the ministry added.
Additionally, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman Aram Torosyan said on Tuesday that positional battles are continuing in some parts of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
“As of 08:00 on September 13 [04:00 GMT], the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border has not changed significantly. The enemy continues to use artillery, mortars, drones and large-caliber rifles in the directions of Vardenis, Sotk, Artanish, Ishkhanasar, Goris and Kapan, targeting both military and civilian infrastructures,” the spokesman said.
Torosyan added that “the enemy does not stop the attempts to advance.”
The Armenian government contacted Russia in order to implement the security provisions of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance and also contacted the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the United Nations Security Council.
