Azerbaijan-Armenia violence stabilized, Aliyev tells Putin
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attends a meeting in expanded format of the 22nd Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Sept. 16, 2022. (Foreign Ministry of Uzbekistan handout via EPA)


The recent escalation of violence between Azerbaijan and Armenia has "stabilized," President Ilham Aliyev informed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

Aliyev noted that a cease-fire had been in place for the last two days and that Azerbaijan is committed to trilateral agreements.

The two leaders spoke on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan.

"Border conflicts happen. Unfortunately, they have been associated with numerous casualties on both sides, but the main thing is that we have managed to stabilize the situation and shift it to a peaceful course," Aliyev said.

For his part, Putin said that it was "good" that the conflict had de-escalated, but that the situation was still tense.

Border clashes resumed on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border following the latter's provocations on Tuesday. More than 200 service personnel were killed in the clashes, according to new figures from both countries on Friday.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decadeslong dispute over the region of Karabakh, which lies within Azerbaijan but was under the occupation of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

Moscow brokered a peace deal last November to end six weeks of fighting over the territory, during which more than 6,600 people were killed. The Russia-brokered truce allowed Azerbaijan to liberate large parts of Karabakh and surrounding areas that the Armenia-backed separatists controlled.

After the conflict ended, Azerbaijan launched a massive reconstruction initiative in the liberated Karabakh region.

In March, Azerbaijan sent a proposal containing five conditions to normalize relations with Armenia, the country’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said.

One of the points in the proposal includes the demarcation of the borders between the two countries, which Azerbaijan had proposed to solve, but Armenia had consistently brought preconditions to address it.