A ceasefire agreement on the territory of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic will not replace a final solution to the problem. This statement was made on October 10 by the Turkish Foreign Ministry in connection with the agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the ceasefire, which came into force at 11:00 Moscow time.
“The declared ceasefire is an important first step, but it will not replace a final solution to the problem,” TASS quotes from the communique.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry noted that they will support decisions with which Azerbaijan agrees.
“With this understanding, Turkey will continue to support Azerbaijan both at the negotiating table and on the battlefield,” the statement says.
The ceasefire came into force in Nagorno-Karabakh on October 10 at 12:00 local time (11:00 Moscow time) in accordance with the agreements reached the day before by representatives of the foreign ministries in Moscow.
The parties also agreed, through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, to begin substantive negotiations with the aim of achieving a peaceful settlement of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh as soon as possible and confirmed the invariability of the format of the negotiation process.
Meanwhile, after reaching an agreement, the Armenian Ministry of Defense announced on October 10 that the Azerbaijani armed forces had stepped up the use of drones in the southern direction of the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh and the death of 28 more Karabakh servicemen.
In turn, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan announced intensive shelling from the Armenian side of settlements in five regions around Nagorno-Karabakh.
After the ceasefire came into force, the parties accused each other of violating it.
The conflict in Karabakh began in February 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its secession from the Azerbaijan SSR. During the armed confrontation in 1992-1994, Baku lost control over the region and seven adjacent districts. Since 1992, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the conflict have been conducted within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, headed by three co-chairs – Russia, the United States and France.
Another aggravation of the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh happened on September 27. The parties shifted responsibility for the aggravation of the situation onto each other.