Polish FM appeals to Armenia and Azerbaijan to give up hostilities on their border

The Polish foreign minister, who is also the chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to immediately cease the military escalation along their border.

“The escalation of hostilities at the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan must cease immediately. The progress achieved so far by following the diplomatic path must not be wasted,” Zbigniew Rau told reporters during his visit to Ronne, Bornholm, on Tuesday.

The minister said that both the Polish chairmanship of the OSCE and Poland were ready to assist the two sides in reaching a stable solution to the conflict.

The hostilities erupted on Tuesday, minutes after midnight, when Azerbaijani forces unleashed an artillery barrage and drone attacks on many sections of Armenian territory, according to the Armenian Defence Ministry.

Azerbaijan said that its forces returned fire in response to “large-scale provocations” by the Armenian military, claiming that the Armenian troops planted mines and repeatedly fired on Azerbaijani military positions.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week war in 2020 that killed more than 6,600 people and ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal.