Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed in the UN Security Council on Thursday following the Azerbaijani military offensive in the disputed breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan called on the world to no longer frame the conflict as ”two sides” but rather as ”perpetrators and victims.” Mirzoyan accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the area, stating that the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was hit by indiscriminate shelling with banned cluster weapons. At least 200 people were killed and 400 injured during the Azerbaijani offensive, according to Armenian separatists. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov accused Armenia of misinformation and stated that Armenia has long been promoting separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh through military support. Western countries, including France, the US, and Germany, called on Azerbaijan to protect the civilian population and demanded the reopening of the only available road corridor from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh for humanitarian aid. France, the US, and Germany also condemned the military operation. Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region in southern Caucasus that lies within Azerbaijan’s borders but is de facto a breakaway region under Armenia’s control with mainly Armenian population. The region has been at the center of a decades-long territorial conflict between the two countries, with two wars fought over the territory. In August and September 2020, thousands of combatants were killed during a six-week war. Russia mediated a ceasefire agreement that saw Armenia relinquishing parts of the territory it had controlled for decades, while Russian forces were deployed to man the five-kilometer-wide Lachin corridor to ensure free passage between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. In late June, deadly clashes flared up again in the long-disputed region. Both parties regularly accuse each other of violating the ceasefire in the region. Baku and Yerevan have been trying to negotiate a peace agreement with the help of the EU and the US, whose diplomatic involvement in the Caucasus has irritated Russia.
