BAKU — Azerbaijan
said on Tuesday it was ready for peace talks with Armenia, after Yerevan urged
Baku to negotiate a comprehensive peace treaty amid new tensions over
Nagorno-Karabakh.
اضافة اعلان
"If Armenia is serious about a peace
agreement, then concrete steps have to be made. We repeat that Azerbaijan is
ready for this," the foreign ministry in Baku said in a statement.
The ministry pointed out that Azerbaijan had
proposed that the two countries hold peace talks a year ago.
In 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war
over the long-contested enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh which claimed more than
6,500 lives.
A ceasefire deal brokered by Russian
President Vladimir Putin saw Armenia cede swathes of territory to Azerbaijan,
and Moscow deploy a peacekeeping contingent to the mountainous region.
Last week, Yerevan and Moscow accused Baku
of violating a ceasefire in the Russian contingent's zone of responsibility.
They accused Azeri forces of capturing the
village of Farukh in the Askeran region of Karabakh, where three Armenian
soldiers were killed in a shootout last week.
Baku rejected the accusation, insisting the
area was part of its internationally recognized territory.
On Monday, Armenia's security council
accused Azerbaijan of "preparing the ground for fresh provocations
and an offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh".
It urged Baku to "immediately start
talks on a comprehensive peace treaty".
Armenia also demanded an investigation into
the Russian peacekeeping contingent's actions during the Azeri
"incursion" and urged the Russian force to take "concrete
steps" to diffuse tensions.
A major flare-up in Karabakh could pose a
challenge for Moscow, at a time when tens of thousands of Russian troops are
engaged elsewhere, in Ukraine.
Moscow has deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers
in Karabakh and a land corridor linking it with Armenia.
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.
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