Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said on Thursday his country was "determined to defend" its democracy, sovereignty and territorial integrity "by all means".

His comments came during a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, where he stressed diplomatic solutions to the conflict with Azerbaijan were an "absolute priority".

"We are determined to build peace in our region, but we need the full support of international community," he said.

The two Caucasus countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region located within Azerbaijan but that had been long under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Yerevan since a separatist war ended in 1994.

During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories held by Armenian forces. More than 6,700 people died in that fighting.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have each blamed for fighting which flared-up again earlier this month.

Both sides negotiated a cease-fire to end the conflict that killed 155 soldiers from both sides.