MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. The Kremlin is keeping a close eye on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian president’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
"Indeed, information is scarce. We are really keeping a close eye," he said when asked to comment on reports about the ceasefire violation in Nagorno-Karabakh. He noted that such developments in the region are "an extra job for the peacekeepers."
"Contacts followed quite swiftly," Peskov noted, adding that he cannot say anything more. "Indeed, the situation was alarming but it was swiftly settled," he stressed.
Commander of the Russian military peacekeeping contingent in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone Lieutenant-General Rustam Muradov said earlier that the ceasefire had been violated near the settlements of Htsaberd and Hin Taher in the Hadrut province on December 11. The ceasefire violation was stopped by the Russian peacekeepers, he said, adding that the situation in the area had normalized and was being monitored round-the-clock with permanent contact being maintained with the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July.
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. Under the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the region.