LONDON (Dispatches) - Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached a ceasefire, mediated by Russia, ending hostilities that erupted earlier in the day along their border, the defense ministry in Yerevan said.
The clashes that Armenia said left some of its soldiers dead and a dozen others captured sparked fears of another flare-up a year after the two sides fought a war over the disputed mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Under the mediation of the Russian side, an agreement was reached to cease fire at Armenia’s eastern border from 18:30 (14:30 GMT). The situation has relatively stabilized,” the Armenian defense ministry said in a statement.
Earlier, Armenia’s defense ministry reported fatalities and injuries among Armenian troops as a result of the fighting, adding that the number of casualties was being verified and that Yerevan had “lost control of two military positions”.
The ministry later said that 12 Armenian servicemen were captured by the Azerbaijani military.
Last year’s six-week armed conflict for control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region killed more than 6,500 people and ended in November with a Russian-brokered truce.
Under the 2020 ceasefire agreement, Armenia ceded swaths of territory it had controlled for decades.
Earlier on Tuesday, the two sides traded accusations of the other side initiating fighting along their shared border.
Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said: “Armenia’s armed forces committed a large-scale provocation at the state border at 11:00 am (GMT 07:00).
“Armenian troops attacked Azerbaijani positions in the districts of Kelbajar and Lachin,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that two Azerbaijani troops were wounded in the clashes.
Azerbaijani troops “stopped the enemy’s advance, surrounded and detained Armenian servicemen,” it added.