Armenia and Azerbaijan were due to hold their first high-level talks on Friday after nearly two weeks of clashes over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, with hopes rising that a ceasefire could be brokered in Moscow, The Moscow Times reported.
France, which along with Russia and the United States is part of a group mediating the two countries’ long conflict, said there was a chance of a breakthrough but it was far from certain.
“We are moving towards a truce tonight or tomorrow but it’s still fragile,” President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a statement to AFP.
Armenian and Azerbaijani defense officials said heavy clashes continued overnight and reported further civilian deaths, after Putin announced the meeting in Moscow late Thursday and appealed for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly said there would be no halt to fighting until Armenian troops withdraw and vowed to continue the intervention until his army captured all of Karabakh.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday the two countries’ top diplomats would hold talks in Moscow from 12:00 p.m. GMT.
Renewed fighting over Karabakh — an ethnic Armenian region of Azerbaijan that broke from Baku’s control in a devastating war in the early 1990s — has claimed some 400 lives and forced thousands of people from their homes.
