MOSCOW, November 17. /TASS/. Tension persists at the contact line of the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, despite measures that are being taken, Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Stanislav Zas said at the ninth meeting of CIS security council chiefs in Moscow on Wednesday.

The trilateral agreement reached by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on November 9, 2020, made it possible to halt the bloodshed in Nagorno-Karabakh, he said.

"However, despite the steps that are being taken, tension still persists at the contact line of the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides," Zas said.

Fighting erupted at the Azerbaijani-Armenian border between the armed forces of the two countries on November 16. In the wake of these hostilities, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu alternately held telephone talks with his counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan. As the press office of the Russian Defense Ministry reported, following these talks the defense ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia took measures to stabilize the situation at the border. These steps helped normalize the border situation.

The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent Syunik region in Armenia deteriorated dramatically in November. The sides regularly report armed incidents, including those entailing human casualties. On November 13, Yerevan and Baku exchanged accusations of shelling each other’s army positions. Apart from that, the situation is tense at the sections of the highway linking Armenia and Iran that came over under Baku’s control under the November 9, 2020, statement by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijani and Russia and where a post of Russian border guards was set up to ensure the free movement of people and motor vehicles.