MESOPOTAMA NEWS : Top of the Agenda – Armenia, Azerbaijan Battle Over Contested Region

Fighting erupted on Sunday between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, their latest clash in a long-running territorial dispute. At least thirty people, including civilians, have reportedly been killed (BBC) and more than one hundred others have been wounded so far in the countries’ heaviest fighting since 2016.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been run by ethnic Armenians (Guardian) since 1991 but is internationally viewed as part of Azerbaijan. The conflict between the two former Soviet states threatens to escalate Russia-Turkey tensions. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who rebuked Turkey (Al Jazeera) for vowing to support Azerbaijan. Russia, an Armenian ally, called for an end to the violence, as did the United States, France, and the European Union, among others.
Analysis
“Nagorno-Karabakh: no longer violations of ceasefire or border incidents. War is resuming. Time for Russia, France and [the] US, individually and jointly, to stop it,” the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Dmitri Trenin tweets.

“We are a step away from a large-scale war,” the International Crisis Group’s Olesya Vartanyan tells AFP. “One of the main reasons for the current escalation is a lack of any proactive international mediation between the sides for weeks.”

CFR’s Global Conflict Tracker traces hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.