Armenia will ask for the deployment of Russian border guards on the border with Azerbaijan

“We are in favor of starting the process of delimitation and demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. We proposed a symmetrical withdrawal of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops from the border, deployment of Russian border guards from Sotka to Hoznavar, monitoring of the border line and demarcation and delimitation. said the prime minister at a meeting on Thursday.

Given the situation on the border, “there is reason to consider the deployment of Russian border guards along the entire Armenian-Azerbaijani border,” he added.

“This will make it possible to carry out delimitation and demarcation work without the risk of military clashes. We are going to discuss this with our Russian counterparts,” Pashinyan said.

The Prime Minister also said that he had encouraged the Collective Security Treaty Organization (KDLO), which unites six post-Soviet countries, including Armenia and Russia, to deploy a monitoring mission along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

If such a mission is not possible within the framework of the KDLO, other formats recognized by the international community, including within the OSCE Minsk Group leadership, will be acceptable to Armenia.

The three countries co-chairing the Minsk Group are the United States, France and Russia.

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The Prime Minister has previously called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to provide military support, noting that up to 600 Azerbaijani troops have been deployed on Armenian territory. Baku rejects these allegations.

The United States and France have called on Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops.

Three Armenian soldiers were killed in the shooting with the Azerbaijani army on the border of the two hostile countries on Wednesday, the Armenian Ministry of Defense said.

Two more Armenian soldiers have been injured.

It was the clash with the highest number of casualties since the Nagorno-Karabakh war last year.

In September last year, hostilities broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Armenian-populated disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing some 6,500 people.

The war lasted six weeks and ended on November 9, when Armenia and Azerbaijan, with Russian support, reached an agreement to cease fire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which many in Armenia see as capitulation.

Under the agreement, the Armenians lost part of the main territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as all areas of the security buffer zone that had been under Armenian control since the 1990s.

Nagorno-Karabakh, which was part of the Azerbaijani SSR during the Soviet era, has been a “de facto” independent Armenian republic since the early 1990s. Although Azerbaijan has not controlled Nagorno-Karabakh since the collapse of the USSR, it considers the Armenian region to be its territory.