Over 210 soldier killed during border clashes between Armenia-Azerbaijan

Nagorno-Karabakh, Sept 17: Over 210 Armenian and Azerbaijani troops died in border clashes this week. Armenia accused Azerbaijani troops of atrocities. It is the worst border clash between the two countries since the 2020 war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

 

 

 

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would visit Yerevan on Saturday after the deadly border clashes between the two ex-Soviet republics. The recent fighting between the two neighbors has undone the efforts of the western countries to make them sign a peace agreement.

 

 

 

Both Yerevan and Baku accused each other of provocations. Notably, the clashes erupted on Tuesday. The fighting continued for two days and ended on Thursday with international mediation. As per Azerbaijan's defence ministry, 77 of its troops died in the clashes. Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed that 135 soldiers of his country lost their lives in the recent fighting. "Unfortunately, it is not the final figure. As quoted by AFP, there are also many wounded," Pashinyan told his cabinet. Later, Armenia's rights ombudsperson, Kristina Grigoryan, said that one civilian was also killed and six others sustained injuries in the shelling by Azerbaijani troops. Meanwhile, a delegation of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) arrived in Yerevan on Thursday evening. Notably, CSTO is a Moscow-led grouping of ex-Soviet republics. Azerbaijan is not a member of CSTO.

 

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The two countries fought two wars in the 1990s and 2020 over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. It is internally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Around 6,500 people were killed in the 2020 war between the two neighboring countries. As per reports, between 20,000 and 30,000 people were killed in the full-scale war after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It ended in 1994.