At least two Armenian forces have been injured after Baku used drones in the direction of Sotk, according to Yerevan.
Renewed border clashes have erupted between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, according to Yerevan, a day after deadly fighting threatened to derail European Union-led weekend peace talks between the Caucasus’ arch-enemies.
Baku and Yerevan are embroiled in a decades-long territorial dispute over Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which they have fought two wars.
On Friday morning, “the Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire in the direction of Sotk (eastern part of the state border) using UAVs,” the defense ministry in Yerevan said in a statement.
It said that “two servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces were injured”, and one of them is in critical condition.
An Azerbaijani soldier was killed and four Armenian troops injured in border clashes on Thursday.
Weekend conversations
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will meet in Brussels on Sunday for talks led by European Council President Charles Michel.
The rival leaders had also agreed to jointly meet the leaders of France and Germany on the sidelines of a European summit in Moldova on June 1, the EU said.
Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan on Thursday of trying to undermine talks in Brussels.
He warned there was “very little” chance of signing a peace deal with Azerbaijan at the meeting.
A draft agreement “is still at a very preliminary stage and it is too early to speak of a final signature,” Pashinyan said.
The EU-led diplomacy comes after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers to Washington for negotiations in early May.
Security guaranteed
The West has stepped up mediation as the influence of Russia, historically the main broker of power between the former Soviet republics, is dwindling with the invasion of Ukraine.
Armenia, which traditionally relied on Russia as a security guarantor, grew increasingly frustrated with Moscow.
It has accused Russia of failing to fulfill its peacekeeping role when Azerbaijani activists blocked Karabakh’s only land connection with Armenia.
The two countries waged war over disputed territories, mainly Nagorno-Karabakh, in 2020 and throughout the 1990s.
Tens of thousands of people have died in the region’s two wars.