No end in sight? Armenia & Azerbaijan accuse each other of violations, minutes after Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire supposed to begin

A Russia-brokered ceasefire was supposed to end the fighting in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region at noon local time on Saturday, but Armenia and Azerbaijan both quickly reported continued attacks on each other's positions.

Yerevan’s Defense Ministry spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said that Baku launched an offensive into Nagorno-Karabakh five minutes after the ceasefire had supposedly commenced. She later added that Azerbaijani forces were shelling the town of Hadrut.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry, in the meantime, reported that “despite the ceasefire agreement” Armenia had launched attacks against several Azerbaijani regions. Yerevan quickly denied these claims.

The truce was agreed overnight on Friday following intense talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Moscow.

Armenia’s President Armen Sarkissian thanked Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as well as other co-chairs of the OSCE group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – France and the US – for their mediation efforts. He expressed hope that the ceasefire would “start the process of returning to peace.”

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev supported the negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE group. Azerbaijan could sit down for talks with Yerevan “even tomorrow,” he told Russia’s RBK channel. “The military part, or the first part, has reached its end,” the president said, adding that the time has come for a political settlement that would allow Baku to “get what is ours by right.”

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said that there are “currently no conditions” to implement the truce as long as Armenia continues to shell the country’s territory.

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