By Felix Light
(Reuters) – Armenia called on Azerbaijan on Tuesday to investigate ceasefire violations along the two countries’ frontier, as a surge of reported incidents of cross-border gunfire raises the prospect of renewed fighting between the long-term rivals.
Armenia and Azerbaijan said in March they had agreed the text of a peace treaty to end almost 40 years of conflict over the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which previously had a largely ethnic Armenian population.
But since the text of the still-unsigned treaty was agreed on March 13, authorities on both sides have reported ceasefire violations 26 times. Multiple incidents have been reported on several days in the last month.
In the five months prior to the treaty announcement only three violations had been reported.
Most of the accusations have come from Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev has hinted at renewed military action if Armenia fails to sign a peace treaty.
On Monday, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of shooting at the border settlement of Khnatsakh, damaging the village’s cultural centre. Azerbaijan called the report “disinformation”.
Addressing Armenia’s parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Azerbaijan should investigate the violations, either with Armenia or with international participation.
According to an official transcript of his speech, Pashinyan said that the incidents were: “either a consequence of indiscipline in the armed forces of Azerbaijan, or are aimed at exerting psychological pressure on the population”.
“The Republic of Armenia calls on the Republic of Azerbaijan to investigate the mentioned cases and take measures to stop them,” he said.
Both sides consistently deny the other’s accusations.
Azerbaijan retook Karabakh in 2023, which prompted almost all the territory’s 100,000 Armenians to leave. Shortly after, both sides said they were willing to formally end their conflict via a peace treaty, but negotiations have been slow.
Azerbaijan has said it will not sign the draft agreed in March until Armenia changes its constitution to remove a reference to Karabakh, which could take until 2026.
Azerbaijan has also demanded that Yerevan provide it with a corridor across Armenian territory, linking Baku to its exclave of Nakhchivan and its ally, Turkey.
There have been no casualties in the recent ceasefire violations, with no deaths on the roughly 1,000 km (620 mile) frontier since February 2024, when four Armenian soldiers were killed in one incident.
(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Ros Russell)
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