Armenia-Azerbaijan border issues: India calls for diplomacy and dialogue

New Delhi [India], September 13 (ANI): Amid reports of attacks along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, Indian on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire and said that bilateral disputes should be settled through diplomacy and dialogue.
Responding to media queries regarding reports of attacks along the Armenia- Azerbaijan border, the Official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Arindam Bagchi said that India encourages both sides to aim for talks to arrive at a lasting and peaceful solution.
"We have seen reports of attacks along the Armenia- Azerbaijan border, including targeting civilian settlements and infrastructure on 12/13 September 2022. We call upon the aggressor side to immediately cease hostilities," he said in a statement.
"We believe that bilateral disputes should be settled through diplomacy and dialogue. There can be no military solution to any conflict. We encourage both sides to pursue talks to arrive at a lasting and peaceful solution," Bagchi added.
Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan with Armenian support after a bloody post-Soviet conflict in the early 1990s. In 2020, Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war over the region and Baku successfully won back part of the territory controlled by the separatists. Under the terms of a subsequent ceasefire, Russian peacekeepers were deployed to protect the remainder of the separatist-held territory. Both sides accuse each other of breaches, and in recent days violence has flared.
The decades-long conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalated in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and left thousands of casualties on both sides. Russia mediated a trilateral ceasefire declaration in November of that year and the sides agreed to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the region. This caused a political crisis in Armenia, where many view the ceasefire as a defeat in the prolonged conflict and blame Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. (ANI)