Baku denies Russian claims of Azeri withdrawal from Karabakh village

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijan on Sunday, March 27 denied Russia’s claims it had pulled back troops from a strategic village in Nagorno-Karabakh and that its forces had violated a ceasefire that ended the war in fall 2020.

Earlier on Sunday, Russia’s defense ministry said: “The Azerbaijani side carried out the withdrawal of its units from near the settlement of Parukh.”

It added that Azerbaijan’s troops had twice violated a ceasefire in Karabakh’s Askeran region, where the Karabakh Defense Ministry said three troops were killed.

“In cooperation with representatives of the parties to the conflict, the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent has stabilized the situation,” the statement added, according to AFP (via Barron's).

But the defense ministry in Baku said it “declares with regret” that Russia’s statement on Azerbaijani withdrawal “does not correspond to reality.

“There were no changes in the positions of the Azerbaijani army in the village of Parukh and the surrounding heights, which are part of Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory,” the ministry said.

It added that “the information on alleged the ceasefire violation by Azerbaijan also doesn’t reflect reality and no Azerbaijani troops have been wounded”.

Editor-in-Chief of Hetq newspaper Edik Baghdasaryan confirmed that the Azerbaijanis have not left. "The enemy has not gone anywhere, they are in the same positions," he wrote on his Facebook page.

On Saturday, Moscow accused Azerbaijan of violating a ceasefire agreement by entering the Russian peacekeeping mission’s zone in Karabakh.