Just hours later, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing its readiness to resolve the dispute with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the focus of two wars over the past 30 years. The statement did not mention Russia’s complaints, according to Reuters.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, in a series of statements, said that it was Armenia that was threatening the stability of the region by supporting the separatist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh.
An ethnic Armenian soldier in Nagorno-Karabakh
"Armenia pursues one goal: to maintain the separatist movement on the territory of Azerbaijan through all possible means including ideological, political, military, financial and other means," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry alleged.
Armenia and Azerbaijan on September 7 accused each other of mobilizing troops near their shared border.
Russia on September 8 expressed a "stern" protest to the Armenian ambassador over Yerevan's participation in the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Armenian PM says relying solely on Russia for security is 'strategic mistake'
They were also unhappy with Armenia's agreement to hold a military exercise with the United States, as well as the Armenian prime minister's wife's visit to Ukraine on humanitarian grounds.
Armenia is home to a Russian military base and is almost entirely dependent on Russia for defense supplies.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview published this week that Armenia’s policy of relying solely on Russia for its security was a strategic mistake. He said Moscow had failed to deliver on its commitments and was reducing its role in the South Caucasus as it focused on the war in Ukraine.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region has long been recognized as part of Azerbaijan but the majority of its residents are ethnic Armenians.
Armenian forces seized territory around Nagorno-Karabakh when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, but Azerbaijan retook the areas in a six-week conflict in 2020 that ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire. Talks have so far failed to produce a lasting peace.
Armenia says Russian peacekeepers monitoring a 2020 ceasefire have failed to end Azerbaijan’s blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh. It has also openly questioned whether it should remain in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led military alliance of six former Soviet republics.
Russia has asserted that it will continue to play the role of the main "security guarantor" in the Caucasus.
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