Azerbaijan-Armenia border dispute should be resolved peacefully: Iranian foreign minister

YEREVAN, Armenia

Iran’s foreign minister urged Azerbaijan and Armenia on Wednesday to peacefully resolve a recent border dispute.

“Killing of people at every tension is concerning. This issue should be resolved as soon as possible with peace,” Javad Zarif said at a news conference in Yerevan following a meeting with his Armenian counterpart, Ara Ayvazyan.

“I saw that [Azerbaijan’s President Ilham] Aliyev is ready to decrease the level of tension and for dialogue,” he said, noting his meeting Tuesday with Aliyev.

Zarif also expressed Iran’s readiness to take the initiative to resolve the dispute.

Ayvazyan, for his part, said that Armenia is in favor of resolving the dispute through political and diplomatic means.

The settlement of the Azerbaijani army in certain sites in Lachin and Kalbajar provinces, which were liberated from Armenian occupation last year, has prompted tension between Baku and Yerevan.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan applied to the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on claims that some areas settled by the Azerbaijani army belonged to his country.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Last year, the conflict escalated again and lasted six weeks, ending up with a Russian-brokered truce on Nov. 10.

During that time, Azerbaijan liberated several strategic cities and nearly 300 of its settlements and villages from Armenian occupation.

A joint Turkish-Russian center was established to monitor the cease-fire. Russian peacekeeping troops have also been deployed in the region.

*Contributions and writing by Sena Guler in Ankara​​​​​​​