MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. The current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh was the focus of a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Kremlin press service said on Friday.

"The sides discussed current issues of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement in the context of the implementation of agreements committed to paper in the trilateral statements of November 9, 2020 and January 11, 2021, and the current situation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border," it said.

Putin and Pashinyan also agreed to continue contacts at various levels.

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. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs – Russia, France and the United States.

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. 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 to exercise control of the ceasefire observance. Apart from that, a number of districts came over to Baku’s control.

The situation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border has been tense since May 12, when Armenia’s defense ministry said that Azerbaijani armed forces had tried to carry out "certain works" in a border area in Syunik Province in a bid to "adjust the border. Since then, the sides have been reporting border incidents from time to time.