The US is pushing the Azerbaijani authorities to accept the ceasefire regime with Armenia, which has agreed to this proposal. This was announced on Sunday, October 25, by the Assistant for National Security of the President of the United States Robert O’Brien in an interview with CBS.
He noted that work on the ceasefire is underway this week. Armenia has accepted the ceasefire proposal, but Azerbaijan has not yet.
Earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that Baku is ready to reach a new ceasefire agreement in the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), but Yerevan must declare its adherence to the basic principles of the conflict settlement. He specified that Baku wants a ceasefire and the return of its lands.
On October 9, after negotiations in Moscow, held at the initiative of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed on a ceasefire from 12:00 (11:00 Moscow time) on October 10 for humanitarian purposes for the exchange of prisoners and bodies of the dead. But Baku and Yerevan continued to blame each other for the attacks and the deaths of civilians.
On October 17, an agreement was reached on a new truce in the conflict zone. It entered into force at midnight on October 18 (23:00 Moscow time on October 17), the first night in the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, passed calmly. However, later, both Yerevan and Baku again accused each other of violating the ceasefire and conducting shelling on the line of contact.
Later, NKR President Arayik Harutyunyan appealed to Russian leader Vladimir Putin with a request to do everything possible to end hostilities in the region.
The conflict over Karabakh began in 1988. Then the autonomy, in which the majority of Armenians lived, announced its secession from the Azerbaijan SSR. During the military confrontation from 1992 to 1994, Baku lost control of the region. Another aggravation of the conflict occurred at the end of September.