"No new escalation..." Armenia and Azerbaijan to sign peace treaty

Yerevan [Armenia], March 24 (ANI): Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday announced that there will be a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan based on joint official statements adopted at the highest level. The PM said: "There won't be a new escalation."
"There will be a #peace treaty between #Armenia and #Azerbaijan, and it will be based on the joint official statements adopted at the highest level. There won't be a new escalation! The international community must strongly support this narrative," the Armenian PM tweeted on Thursday.
US State Department's Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel in response to the development said the US is encouraged by the progress made toward lasting and sustainable peace in the South Caucasus.
He said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is engaged in facilitating peace discussions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
"@SecBlinken is very engaged in facilitating peace discussions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we are encouraged by the progress made toward lasting and sustainable peace in the South Caucasus. We very much appreciate @NikolPashinyan's message on that progress," Patel tweeted on Friday.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have engaged in two wars in the more than 30 years both ex-Soviet states have been independent.
Thousands of lives have been claimed in fighting for the control of Azerbaijan's Armenian-populated enclave of Karabakh.
According to Al Jazeera, a fragile truce has been in force between the neighbours since a 2020 war that left more than 6,500 dead and forced Armenia to cede territories it had controlled for decades.
Recently, Azerbaijani troops and ethnic Armenians exchanged gunfire in Azerbaijan's contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing at least five people.
As per Azerbaijan's defence ministry, two servicemen were killed after Azerbaijani troops stopped a convoy suspected of carrying weapons from the region's main town to outlying areas. It said the convoy had used an unauthorised road.
Armenia's foreign ministry said three officials from the Karabakh interior ministry were killed. The convoy had been carrying documents and a service pistol, it said, dismissing Azerbaijani allegations that weapons were being carried as "absurd", Al Jazeera reported.
It said Azerbaijan's version of events was a "provocation planned in advance and instructed by the top leadership". (ANI)