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Armenian PM says OSCE Minsk Group may discuss Russian peacekeepers’ deployment to Karabakh

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh
Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan Yekaterina Shtukina/POOL/TASS
Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
© Yekaterina Shtukina/POOL/TASS

YEREVAN, October 3. /TASS/. The issue of Russian peacekeepers’ deployment to Nagorno-Karabakh could be raised at the OSCE Minsk Group, the Armenian government’s press office said on Saturday citing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s interview with Al Jazeera

"You see those issues could be discussed in the context of the wider resolution within the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship," Pashinyan said when asked if he would like to see Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh.

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. Azerbaijan and Armenia have imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict have reported casualties, among them civilians.

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.