MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will organize consultations on the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border within days, CSTO spokesman Vladimir Zainetdinov told TASS on Friday.
"The Armenian side has informed the CSTO secretariat about its inquiry sent to the CSTO Collective Security Council Chairman and Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmon. The issue of organizing consultations is being addressed now. Consultations are expected to be held within days," he said.
According to Zainetdinov, CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas had telephone talks on this matter with Armenian acting Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan and Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Mukhriddin.
Armenia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that Azerbaijani armed forces had tried to carry out "certain works" in a border area in the Syunik Province in a bid to "adjust the border." Following retaliatory measures, the Azerbaijani side stopped its activities and agreed to hold talks to settle the situation. Later in the same day, Pashinyan called a meeting of the country’s Security Council where he described the situation as an infringement of Armenia’s territory. He said Azerbaijani troops had crossed Armenia’s state border and moved 3.5 kilometers deep into its territory.
In a separate development, Armenia’s parliament has passed a statement on the "crisis situation in border districts" amid the incident with Azerbaijan.
The extraordinary meeting of the Nationals Assembly was broadcast live by local news portals on Friday.
"The statement on the crisis situation in border districts, especially Syunik, Gegharkunik, and Vyots Dzor Provinces, the existing problems, ways to resolve them, border protection and security problems was passed by 86 votes, with no votes against and no one abstaining," deputy speaker Alen Simonyan said.
The statement says that Armenia has the right to take proportionate steps following Azerbaijan’s provocation against Armenia’s sovereign territory. It emphasizes that Baku’s aggressive actions violate fundamental human rights committed to paper in the United Nations founding documents.
After the end of hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone last autumn, seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh came over to Baku’s control and the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan was moved closer to the Syunik Province. Territorial disputes between the sides arise from time to time.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, 2020, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
On November 9, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. Under the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachinsky corridor that connects Armenia with the enclave. Apart from that, several districts came over to Baku’s control.