Azerbaijan: 7 soldiers dead after fighting against Armenia

Seven Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in fighting between them on Tuesday against Armenian forces near the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on Wednesday (November 17th).

Read alsoArmenia announces truce with Azerbaijan, after Russia's "mediation"

Ten Azerbaijani soldiers were also injured in the clashes, the most violent since the end of a war between Yerevan and Baku last year, according to the same source.

Armenia has for its part reported one soldier killed, 24 missing and 13 prisoners during these clashes.

Yerevan also said it had lost two military positions captured by Baku forces.

After several weeks of escalating tensions on the border, fighting broke out on Tuesday between the soldiers of these two rival Caucasian countries, who are vying for control of the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Yerevan announced Tuesday evening that a truce had been concluded after the mediation of Russia, a regional power.

Yerevan and Baku blame each other for this new violence.

A fragile balance

These latest battles illustrate the precarious balance that reigns in the powder keg of the Caucasus, almost a year to the day after the end of a bloody six-week conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.

These clashes occurred despite the presence in this region of soldiers from the Russian peacekeeping forces, deployed in November 2020 as part of a ceasefire negotiated by Vladimir Putin to end the war in the year latest.

Read also Paris calls for "respect for the ceasefire" between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Tuesday's clashes are the most intense since the end of the conflict, which left more than 6,500 dead and at the end of which Armenia was forced to cede to Azerbaijan several regions forming a glacis around Nagorno-Karabakh.

Populated mainly by Armenians, the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, supported by Yerevan, seceded from Azerbaijan after the fall of the USSR, leading to a first war in the 1990s which caused the death of 30,000 people and made hundreds of thousands of refugees.