The ‘frozen conflict’ of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the South Caucasus, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, continues to reignite, killing senior officers on the Azer side in tense artillery duels.
Azerbaijani Army Major-General Polad Gashimov and Colonel Ilgar Mirzoyev were killed in armed clashes on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Azerbaijan’s APA news agency reported on Tuesday, citing Deputy Defense Minister Kerim Veliyev, reported Russian state news agency TASS.
“Major-General Polad Gashimov and colonel Ilgar Mirzoyev died heroically in the morning battles,” the news agency quoted the deputy defense minister as saying.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency AzerTAc also confirmed this information.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov voiced the Russian Federation’s concern over the continued military action.
We are deeply concerned by shootouts on the Armenian-Azeri border,” he noted. “We are calling on both sides to exercise restraint and honor their obligations as part of a ceasefire. As we have repeatedly said on different levels, Russia is ready to provide mediation efforts for settlement, as a co-chair of the [OSCE] Minsk Group.”
“As you know, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had intensive contacts with his counterparts from Baku and Yerevan,” Peskov added, wrote TASS.
Despite international pressure and diplomacy, the conflict has not found a solution since war erupted in the early 1990s between the two former Soviet republics.
