Three Armenians killed in fresh clashes with Azerbaijan

YEREVAN: Three Armenians died Wednesday in fresh border clashes with Azerbaijan, officials said, two weeks after the arch foes’ worst fighting since their 2020 war jeopardized nascent peace talks.At least 286 people were killed from both sides during the two-day fighting earlier this month, before the United States brokered a truce.The ex-Soviet Caucasus neighbors fought two wars — in 2020 and in the 1990s — over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan.On Wednesday, Armenia’s defense ministry said “Azerbaijani forces opened fire from mortars and large-calibre firearms at the eastern direction of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.””As a result, there are three dead from the Armenian side,” the ministry said in a statement.Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan tweeted that three of his troops had been killed “an attack against Armenian independence, sovereignty and democracy.””Withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops and deployment of an international observer mission on the Armenian territories affected by Azerbaijani occupation and bordering areas is an absolute necessity,” he wrote.A six-week war in 2020 claimed the lives of more than 6,500 troops from both sides and ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire.Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow deployed about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.With Moscow increasingly isolated on the world stage following its February invasion of Ukraine, the United States and the European Union had taken a leading role in mediating the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization process.Last week, the two countries’ foreign ministers met in New York for talks mediated by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.During EU-led negotiations in Brussels in April and May, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan agreed to “advance discussions” on a future peace treaty.They last met in Brussels on August 31, for talks mediated by European Council President Charles Michel.The talks also focus on border delimitation and the reopening of transport links.The issue of ensuring a land transport link between Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan and its ally Ankara via Armenian territory has emerged as the primary sticking point.Azerbaijan insists on Yerevan renouncing its jurisdiction over the land corridor that should pass along Armenia’s border with Iran — a demand the Armenian government rejects as an affront to the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.