Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved exclusively in a peaceful way- Iranian president says
"Armenia and Azerbaijan are friendly countries to us and we hope to witness a stable peace in the region. The Karabakh problem has no military solution,", - Rouhani said on Wednesday at a briefing in Yerevan after talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.
In turn, the President of Armenia said that Armenia highly appreciates the "balanced position of Tehran on the Karabakh settlement based on international law," Interfax reported.
"During the talks we noted that the problem can not have a military solution, and stressed the inadmissibility of steps that could lead to the escalation of the tension in the region", - the President of Armenia said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into armed clashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan sought to secede from Azerbaijan and declared its independence backed by a successful referendum.
On May 12, 1994, the Bishkek cease-fire agreement put an end to the military operations. A truce was brokered by Russia in 1994, although no permanent peace agreement has been signed. Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions have been under the control of Armenian forces of Karabakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh is the longest-running post-Soviet era conflict and has continued to simmer despite the relative peace of the past two decades, with snipers causing tens of deaths a year.
On April 2, 2016, Azerbaijan launched military assaults along the entire perimeter of its contact line with Nagorno-Karabakh. Four days later a cease-fire was reached. ---0---