ISTANBUL/YEREVAN: Armenia said Tuesday that at least 49 of its troops were killed in border clashes with Azerbaijan, the worst fighting between the arch foes since their 2020 war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“For the moment, we have 49 (troops) killed and unfortunately it’s not the final figure,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told parliament.
Meanwhile, Turkey told Armenia on Tuesday to “cease its provocations” against Azerbaijan, following a flareup of deadly clashes along the arch foes’ shared border.
“Armenia should cease its provocations and focus on peace negotiations and cooperation with Azerbaijan,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted after a phone call with Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov.
Armenia appealed to world leaders for help, saying that Azerbaijani forces were trying to advance onto its territory amid deadly clashes along the arch foes’ shared border.
Fighting erupted overnight along the volatile border between the Caucasus neighbors, leaving troops dead on both sides, defense ministries in Baku and Yerevan said, without giving the number of casualties.
The escalation marked the latest flare up since the end of the 2020 war between Yerevan and Baku over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“Azerbaijani forces continue using artillery, trench mortars, and drones... striking military and civilian infrastructure. The enemy is trying to advance (into Armenian territory),” Armenia’s defense ministry in Yerevan said early on Tuesday.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s office said he called French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken to demand “an adequate reaction” to “Azerbaijan’s aggressive acts.”
Pashinyan also chaired an emergency session of the country’s security council that agreed to formally ask for military help from ally Moscow, which is obligated under a current treaty to defend Armenia in the event of foreign invasion.
Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan and Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu “held a phone conversation to discuss Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenia’s sovereign territory,” the defense ministry in Yerevan said, adding that the two “agreed to take necessary steps to stabilize the situation.”
Armenia is a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization(CSTO) which also includes former Soviet republics Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Earlier, Azerbaijani defense ministry said its forces were responding to Armenian provocation and denied claims that they were hitting civilian infrastructure.
“Azerbaijani armed forces are undertaking limited and targeted steps, neutralising Armenian firing positions,” it said in a statement.
Armenia said that Azerbaijani forces “launched intensive shelling, with artillery and large-calibre firearms, against Armenian military positions in the direction of the cities of Goris, Sotk, and Jermuk” shortly after midnight.
But Azerbaijan’s defense ministry accused Armenia of “large-scale subversive acts” near the districts of Dashkesan, Kelbajar and Lachin on the border, adding that its army positions “came under fire, including from trench mortars.”
Last week, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing one of its soldiers in a border shootout.
In August, Azerbaijan said it had lost a soldier and the Karabakh army said two of its troops had been killed and more than a dozen injured.
The neighbors fought two wars — in the 1990s and in 2020 — over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated enclave.
Six weeks of fighting in the autumn of 2020 claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire.
Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades and Moscow deployed about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.
During EU-mediated talks in Brussels in May and April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed to “advance discussions” on a future peace treaty.
Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.
Turkey tells Armenia to ‘cease provocations’ as Yerevan appeals for help against Baku
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Turkey tells Armenia to ‘cease provocations’ as Yerevan appeals for help against Baku
- Armenia said that at least 49 of its troops were killed in border clashes with Azerbaijan
Anger as branch of ICE to help with security at Winter Olympics
ROME: A branch of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will help with security for the Winter Olympics in Italy, it confirmed Tuesday, sparking anger and warnings they were not welcome.
Reports had been circulating for days that the agency embroiled in an often brutal immigration crackdown in the United States could be involved in US security measures for the February 6-22 Games in northern Italy.
In a statement overnight to AFP, ICE said: “At the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is supporting the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations.
“All security operations remain under Italian authority.”
It’s not known whether the HSI has in the past been involved in the Olympics, or whether this is a first.
According to the ICE website, the HSI investigates global threats, investigating the illegal movement of people, goods, money, contraband, weapons and sensitive technology into, out of, and through the United States.
ICE made clear its operations in Italy were separate from the immigration crackdown, which is being carried out by the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) department.
“Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries,” it said.
The protection of US citizens during Olympic Games overseas is led by the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS).
Yet the outrage over ICE immigration operations in the United States is shared among many in Italy, following the deaths of two civilians during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
The leftist mayor of Milan, which is hosting several Olympic events, said ICE was “not welcome.”
“This is a militia that kills... It’s clear that they are not welcome in Milan, there’s no doubt about it, Giuseppe Sala told RTL 102.5 radio.
“Can’t we just say no to (US President Donald) Trump for once?“
Alessandro Zan, a member of the European Parliament for the center-left Democratic Party, condemned it as “unacceptable.”
“In Italy, we don’t want those who trample on human rights and act outside of any democratic control,” he wrote on X.
Monitoring Vance
Italian authorities initially denied the presence of ICE and then sought to downplay any role, suggesting they would help only in security for the US delegation.
US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are attending the opening ceremony in Milan on February 6.
On Monday, the president of the northern Lombardy region, said their involvement would be limited to monitoring Vance and Rubio.
“It will be only in a defensive role, but I am convinced that nothing will happen,” Attilio Fontana told reporters.
However, his office then issued a statement saying he did not have any specific information on their presence, but was responding to a hypothetical question.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi was quoted as saying late Monday that “ICE, as such, will never operate in Italy.”
The International Olympic Committee when contacted by AFP about the matter replied: “We kindly refer you to the USOPC (the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee).”
Thousands of ICE agents have been deployed by President Donald Trump in various US cities to carry out a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Their actions have prompted widespread protests, and the recent killings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, on the streets of Minneapolis sparked outrage.
