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France, Russia Call Azerbaijan, Armenia to Talks to End Fighting

France, Russia Call Azerbaijan, Armenia to Talks to End Fighting

France and Russia are to press Azerbaijan and Armenia to halt the worst fighting in decades over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, as Iran warned the warring sides not to let the conflict spill across its border.

Talks will take place in Geneva on Thursday and in Moscow on Oct. 12 to try to restore a cease-fire, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers in Paris Wednesday.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov will attend the talks in Geneva, his office said Wednesday. Armenia said Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan will meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow on Monday but won’t go to Geneva. Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the visit, the state-run Tass news service reported.

Azerbaijan “started the conflict, for a relatively small territorial gain,” and it’s in everyone’s interest to restore a cease-fire and have negotiations without preconditions, Le Drian told the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee. The “new element” in the crisis is Turkey’s involvement that “risks feeding the internationalization of the conflict, which we don’t want,” he said.

France, Russia Call Azerbaijan, Armenia to Talks to End Fighting

The diplomatic moves came as intense fighting continued for an 11th day between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces, with each side accusing the other of firing on civilian populations. They have so far ignored cease-fire appeals from the U.S., France and Russia, which act as the so-called Minsk Group of mediators that have tried for decades without success to resolve the conflict.

Armenia’s Mnatsakanyan won’t meet Azerbaijan’s Bayramov in Geneva because it’s unacceptable to hold talks “while military actions are carried out against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia,” said Anna Naghdalyan, spokeswoman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

Armenians took control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts of Azerbaijan in a 1990s war amid the collapse of the Soviet Union. While a Russia-brokered cease-fire in 1994 halted the fighting that killed 30,000 and displaced 1 million people, the two sides never signed a peace accord.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “briefly” discussed the conflict with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, in a phone call Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a conference call. It’s the first disclosure of talks between the two leaders since the fighting erupted Sept 27.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also spoke to Putin, their fifth phone talk in the same period.

Iran issued a “strong protest” to both Azerbaijan and Armenia over the “violation of territorial integrity” and damage to property from rockets and shelling that have landed on its side of the border, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.

Backed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Aliyev has vowed to continue this military campaign until Armenian forces leave the territory that’s internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Armenia says it’s defending Nagorno-Karabakh’s right to self-determination after its Armenian majority declared independence.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned against allowing the conflict “to bring to our borders the very terrorists we have been fighting and eliminating in Syria for years,” following reports Turkey is allowing Syrian militants to pass through its territory en route to Azerbaijan. “This is unacceptable and we’ve clearly informed our neighbors about that,” he said.

Turkey and Azerbaijan deny that Syrian militants are involved in the fighting. Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergei Naryshkin, warned Tuesday that the conflict was drawing in extremists “like a magnet” and posed a potential threat to Russia’s security from “terrorist organizations.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.