Armenia, in the South Caucasus, accused neighboring Azerbaijan of new war plans in the context of the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“It seems to us that preparations are underway to launch a new war, a new military aggression against Armenia,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said yesterday at the opening of the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE ). in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. The Armenian military had previously reported the injury of a soldier by Azerbaijani forces.
Azerbaijan, ruled by authoritarianism, conquered the Nagorno-Karabakh region, disputed between the two countries, at the end of September, after fierce attacks. Around 100,000 residents of the predominantly Armenian population have since fled to the motherland. The region separated from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in a bloody civil war in the 1990s with the help of Yerevan.
Ongoing dispute over enclave
Pashinyan now complained that Baku was planning new conquests. “It is very suspicious that at the official level in Azerbaijan, Armenia is called Western Azerbaijan,” he said. The backdrop will likely be the ongoing dispute over Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan enclave.
Nakhichevan has around 400,000 inhabitants and borders mainly Iran and Armenia. The region was added to Azerbaijan at the beginning of the Soviet era – probably also with Turkish interests in mind.
Azerbaijan has long pushed for a new road and rail link to its enclave. Baku’s statements about creating a corridor can also be understood in military terms.