MOSCOW, November 18. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergei Naryshkin has accused some Western countries of attempts to rekindle the conflict in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh to push Russia out of the Transcaucasian Region.
"According to the information we have, some Western countries are inciting Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalists to discredit and disrupt the ceasefire agreements. They are trying to convince Armenians that the peace in Nagorno-Karabakh is a defeat for Yerevan. They are injecting ideas about the need for a ‘war to the victorious end.’ On the other hand, Azerbaijanis are told that the Kremlin ‘stole their victory’ when the Azerbaijani army was a step away from capturing Stepanakert," reads the statement by Naryshkin issued by the Foreign Intelligence Service Wednesday.
According to Naryshkin, "leading NATO countries are trying to hide their irritation at the agreement on the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia reached with Russia’s active participation." "The United States and its allies are vexed that the war was stopped through Moscow’s mediation. The thing is that it essentially reduced their longstanding work to push Russia out of Transcaucasia to zero," the intelligence chief pointed out.
"Neither Washington nor the ‘United Europe’ want to come to terms with the existing balance of power in the region. They couldn’t come up with anything better than trying to rekindle animosity between the nations of Azerbaijan and Armenia to dismantle it," he warned. "These actions serve as yet more proof that the US and its European friends again pursue their goals at the expense of the interests of ordinary people, in this case, Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Americans and Europeans are not worried that their provocations can lead to new bloodshed and plunge the region into a severe military conflict."
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27 in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. The Russian leader said the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides would maintain the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region. Besides, Baku and Yerevan must exchange prisoners and the bodies of those killed. On November 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order to establish an inter-agency humanitarian response center for Nagorno-Karabakh, including representatives of the Emergencies Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Federal Security Service (FSB) as well as representatives of other interested federal bodies of executive power. The Defense Ministry is tasked with addressing organizational issues.