Armenia accuses Azerbaijan of new war preparations
Armenia in the South Caucasus has accused neighboring Azerbaijan of new war plans against the backdrop of the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"It seems to us that preparations are underway to unleash a new war, a new military aggression against Armenia," said head of government Nikol Pashinyan at the opening of the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Yerevan. Earlier, the Armenian military had reported the injury of a soldier by Azerbaijani forces.
Fierce attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh
The authoritarian-led Azerbaijan conquered the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is disputed between the two countries, at the end of September after fierce attacks. A good 100,000 inhabitants of the predominantly Armenian population have since fled to the motherland. The region had broken away from Baku in the 1990s in a bloody civil war with the help of Yerevan.
Pashinyan has now complained that Baku is planning further conquests. "It is very suspicious that Armenia is officially called Western Azerbaijan in Azerbaijan," he said. The background to this is likely to be the ongoing dispute over the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan.
Nakhichevan has around 400,000 inhabitants and borders mainly on Iran and Armenia. The region was annexed to Azerbaijan at the beginning of the Soviet era - probably also in consideration of Turkish interests. Azerbaijan has long been campaigning for a new road and rail link to its enclave. However, statements from Baku about the creation of a corridor can also be understood in military terms.
The escalating tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region suggest that the risk of another war is imminent, given the ongoing conflict and the accusations of new war preparations by Armenia. The conflicts in this region have resulted in displacement of over 100,000 people from Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan's fierce attacks last September.
Source: www.dpa.com
