On September 13, reports came from Armenia that Azerbaijan was attacking by firing deep inside the territory of Armenia, which Azerbaijan described as responses to Armenia’s “large-scale provocation”. On September 14, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry stated that Armenians were deploying their units at the border to near residential areas, thus having Azerbaijanis fire into civilian infrastructure and “expanding the zone of military operations”.
Though international media like The New York Times and CNN reported the events merely as clashes between the two sides by avoiding to put a blame on one side or another, some super powers and international organizations didn’t hesitate to put blame on Azerbaijan.
Freedom House condemned “Azerbaijani attacks” on Armenia, saying: “Military attacks on sovereign nations have no place in the rules-based international order.”
The Azerbaijani armed forces must immediately cease their deadly attacks on Armenian territory and commit to the ongoing peace process facilitated by the EU, the US, and Russia. Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia should be carried out through diplomacy and negotiation, not through artillery and drone strikes.
President of Freedom House Michael Abramowitz
The spokesperson of the U.S. State Department Ned Price, while answering a reporter’s question at a briefing on September 14, said that State Secretary Anthony Blinken talked to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and urged him “to cease hostilities”.
He [Blinken] conveyed our deep concern over military actions along their shared border, including reports of shelling inside Armenia. He urged President [Ilham] Aliyev to cease hostilities immediately, to disengage military forces, to pull forces back from the border, and to cease hostilities that could endanger civilians, and to work to resolve all outstanding issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan through peaceful negotiations.
Ned Price
On September 13, the Office of President of France Emmanuel Macron stated that while President “urged both sides to stick to a ceasefire”, he would bring up the issue at the UN Security Council, of which France is a permanent member. A special session of the U.N. Security Council on recent fighting along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border continued today.
Following the first reports of the clashes, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan appealed to the Russia-led regional bloc Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which Armenia is a member, to intervene militarily in Armenia’s support. Senior officials from the member nations held an extraordinary session of the CSTO Council on Sep. 13 via a videoconference, and an official statement informing the results of the session was published on the CSTO’s website in the morning of September 14.
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia informed the participants of the meeting about the situation that has developed in certain areas on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, where since midnight on September 13, 2022, there have been clashes with the use of heavy weapons and UAVs, as a result of which there are dead and wounded. The meeting participants expressed their condolences to the Armenian side.
CSTO statement
According to the statement, the agreement was reached at the session to send a mission from the CSTO to Armenia headed by CSTO Secretary-General Stanislav Zas, with the participation of the Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov, and representatives of CSTO member states. The job of the mission is to “assess the situation and prepare a report for consideration” at the regular session of the CSTO Council this autumn.
