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Human rights ombudswoman calls on Armenians, Azerbaijanis to resolve disputes peacefully

A criminal case was opened in Moscow on Friday following a mass brawl between Azerbaijan and Armenia natives in Moscow’s southeastern suburb

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. Russian human rights ombudswoman Tatiana Moskalkova has called on Armenians and Azerbaijanis to demonstrate restraint and resolve conflicts and disputes peacefully.

"I am extremely worried over media reports about clashes between Azerbaijanis and Armenians in Moscow," she said in a statement released by her press service on Friday.

The ombudswoman calls on all those involved in such conflicts "to resolve their disputes within the framework of existing legal mechanisms." She expressed readiness to pool efforts with her counterparts, human rights ombudspersons, in Azerbaijan and Armenia "to take urgent measures to protect rights and freedoms of their compatriots."

"Instigating hatred and physical violence on grounds of ethnic identify are inadmissible in any civilized society as they undermine the basics of human rights and freedoms committed to paper in international universal and regionals laws and are fraught with mass violations and can lead to irreparable losses," Moskalkova said.

A criminal case was opened in Moscow on Friday following a mass brawl between Azerbaijan and Armenia natives in Moscow’s southeastern suburb. More than 25 people were detained on hooliganism and banditry charges, a spokesman form Moscow’s police told TASS.

The situation on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border escalated on July 12, when Azerbaijan said that the Armenian army had tried to attack Azerbaijan’s positions with use of artillery systems. Armenia, in turn, said the situation on the border had aggravated after Azerbaijan’s attempted attack. Baku has reported the death of twelve servicemen. Yerevan said four Armenian soldiers had been killed and ten more were wounded.

On July 18, both sides reported that the situation on the border was relatively calm.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.