Category: 2023

Conflict broke out on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on Thursday morning, with both sides accusing the other of breaking the ceasefire. It comes amidst renewed international mediation of the conflict, and ahead of a meeting between the two countries’ leaders in Brussels.

Armenia’s Defence Ministry accused Azerbaijan of using artillery and mortars to attack Armenian military positions in Sotk, in east Armenia, early on Thursday morning. Drone footage released by Azerbaijani pro-government media appeared to confirm the use of artillery on an Armenian position.

Azerbaijan, however, claimed that Armenia had prompted the escalation by firing at Azerbaijani military positions from Sotk on Wednesday evening, injuring one Azerbaijani soldier, and killing another the following day. 

Armenia reported four service members wounded in the shootout, and accused Azerbaijan of targeting an ambulance carrying wounded soldiers. Armenia’s Health Ministry issued a statement describing the alleged attack as ‘against all international humanitarian laws, even the laws of war’. 

The fresh clashes came shortly after four days of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan’s foreign ministers in Washington, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described as having made progress. Another round of negotiations, this time between Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, is expected to be held in Brussels on Sunday, mediated by EU Council President Charles Michel. 

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (left), US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (centre), and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. Photo: US State Department.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan’s foreign ministries accused the other country of obstructing negotiations following Thursday’s clashes.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry swiftly condemned Azerbaijan’s ‘provocative and aggressive actions՛, claiming they showed ‘an open disregard for the meeting held in Washington, the meetings planned in Brussels and Moscow’. 

Their Azerbaijani counterpart ministry made similar accusations, stating that Armenia’s ‘provocations’ against a backdrop of intensifying negotiations demonstrated that Armenia was not interested in the peace process. 

Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations had been stalled for months since the blockade of the Lachin corridor began in mid-December last year. Armenia has consistently demanded that Azerbaijan lift the blockade, as Azerbaijan denied that a blockade was in place, while installing a checkpoint at the entrance of the corridor in April. 

In a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of trying to ‘nullify’ progress made in the Washington talks. 

‘Today’s provocation also seeks to disrupt the trilateral format talks in Brussels on Sunday, as well as the five-sided talks in Chisinau planned for 1 June’, Pashinyan said. 

‘Experience shows that Azerbaijan needs the negotiation process only to find a reason for escalation and war, while escalations are used exclusively for nullifying any progress achieved in the talks. This is what’s happening now.’ 

Speaking prior to the escalation on 10 May from Shusha (Shushi), in an area of Nagorno-Karabakh that came under Azerbaijani control in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev described the country’s army as ‘among the strongest armies in the world’. 

‘Our army has fought, our army has shown its strength on the battlefield, not in a parade. During 44 days [in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War], not a single person took a step back, not a single person was a deserter. This is our army. This is our people.’

Since active fighting ceased between Armenia and Azerbaijan in November 2020, following the 44-day war, there have been numerous attempts to normalize ties and relations between the two neighbors. The most recent attempt was made in Washington DC, where the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in early May 2023. The two sides discussed the draft bilateral Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations. Separately, another high-level meeting is scheduled to take place in Brussels from May 13–14 under the auspices of European Council President Charles Michel. But if there were any hopes for finally seeing the two countries move forward in peace negotiations following the meeting in DC and ahead of the scheduled meeting in Brussels, the fighting that erupted on May 11 speaks to the fragility of the situation three years after the war, despite numerous attempts to inch the countries closer to a peace deal.

In a press statement issued by Blinken on May 4, the Secretary of State said, “After an intensive and constructive series of bilateral and trilateral discussions, the parties made significant progress in addressing difficult issues. Both demonstrated a sincere commitment to normalizing relations and ending the long-standing conflict between their two countries.”

That “sincere commitment” was nowhere to be seen following the return of the foreign ministers to their home countries. In statements issued by the Ministries of Defense, both sides accused each other of shelling on May 11. According to the statements, four Armenian servicemen were injured and one Azerbaijani serviceman died as a result.

The recent high-level meetings also took place following a months-long blockade of the Lachin Corridor — the only route connecting Armenia to the contested Karabakh region across Azerbaijani territory — following the installation of an Azerbaijani border checkpoint on the corridor on April 23.

Tensions remain and reached new heights at the start of the European Weightlifting Championship in Yerevan, Armenia, on April 14, 2023. A man, who was identified later as an employee of Armenian public television, ran onto the stage, grabbed the Azerbaijani flag during the opening ceremony, set it on fire, and ran off the stage with the flag in his hands. Azerbaijani athletes immediately withdrew from the competition, citing safety concerns.

The flag burning followed deadly clashes between the two countries near the Lachin Corridor on April 11, which left a total of seven soldiers dead — four Armenia soldiers and three Azerbaijani soldiers. There were also reports of at least eight soldiers left wounded during the clash.

Also in April, Armenian security forces detained two Azerbaijani soldiers for illegally crossing into Armenia. Official Baku said the soldiers got lost due to inclement weather. Both soldiers were charged with illegal border crossing, smuggling, and illegal circulation of weapons and ammunition. On April 18, according to reporting by the Armenian Service for Radio Liberty, charges against one of the soldiers were changed. The serviceman stood accused of killing a security guard after crossing into Armenia. On May 8, one of the servicemen was sentenced to eleven and a half years in prison for illegal border crossing, smuggling, and illegal circulation of weapons and ammunition. The investigations related to the second serviceman are still ongoing at the time of writing this story.

Following the sentence on May 8, the Azerbaijan Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the sentence in a strongly worded statement, accusing Armenia of ignoring its legal responsibility in accordance with international humanitarian law and the principles of humanism. Armenia has also leveled similar accusations against Azerbaijan with regard to at least 33 remaining Armenian prisoners of war (PoWs) in Azerbaijan. According to the representative of Armenian prisoners of war at the European Court of Human Rights, Siranush Sahakyan, in addition to the confirmed 33 Armenian prisoners, there are some 80 “unconfirmed” PoWs who remain in captivity in Azerbaijan based on the evidence collected by the Armenian side.

The meeting in the US as well as the upcoming meeting in Brussels, follow a series of mediated meetings between the two countries since the end of hostilities in 2020. In November 2021, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia met in the Russian city of Sochi to discuss bilateral relations in a meeting organized by Russian President Vladimir Putin. A month later, the leaders met in Brussels, this time chaired by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. In February 2022, there was a videoconference call with the leaders and French President Macron. The leaders met again in April and in May 2022. In a separate meeting under EU auspices in March 2022, the countries sent their senior representatives “to continue the engagement to ensure follow-up to agreements reached at leader’s level,” according to a statement by the European Council from April 2022. Michel mediated another meeting that took place in August 2022. In October 2022, in a landmark breakthrough, leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan pledged to mutually recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty at the European Political Community summit held in Prague. Another meeting took place in October between Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Geneva to kick off the work on the future peace treaty.

Throughout these meetings, there have been multiple reports of ceasefire violations, with each side blaming the other for the flare-ups.

The Nagorno-Karabakh area has been under the control of its ethnic Armenian population as a self-declared state since a war fought in the early 1990s, which ended with a ceasefire and Armenian military victory in 1994. In the aftermath of the first war, a new, internationally unrecognized, de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was established. Seven adjacent regions were occupied by the Armenian forces. As a result of that war, “more than a million people had been forced from their homes: Azerbaijanis fled Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the adjacent territories, while Armenians left homes in Azerbaijan,” according to the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that works to prevent wars and shape policies. Following the second Karabakh war in 2020, Azerbaijan regained control over much of the previously occupied seven regions. Azerbaijan also captured one-third of Karabakh during the war. On November 10, 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia.