Armenia and Azerbaijan again pledged to respect from Monday October 26 a "
humanitarian ceasefire
" in the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, they announced in a joint statement with the United States after negotiations in Washington.
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US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun met the foreign ministers of the two countries this Saturday, US diplomacy said in a statement.
The day before, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had received his Azerbaijani counterparts Djeyhoun Baïramov then Armenian Zohrab Mnatsakanian but without a three-way meeting.
“
The humanitarian ceasefire will come into effect at 8:00 am local time on October 26,
” according to the statement released by the US State Department.
The two countries accuse each other of having targeted the civilian population since the start of hostilities on September 27 in this mountainous region of Azerbaijan controlled by Armenian separatists supported by Yerevan.
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This is not the first time that they have committed to a truce.
The joint declaration also underlines that the two ministers “
reaffirmed the commitment of their countries to implement and respect the humanitarian cease-fires concluded in Moscow on October 10 and confirmed in a declaration published in Paris on October 17.
".
But the truce has not held up so far.
Washington is part, along with France and Russia, of the Minsk Group long formed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to be the main mediator in this conflict.
