Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has accused Azerbaijan of concentrating forces near the border between the two countries amid a fresh spike in tensions between the longtime rivals.
Speaking at a meeting of senior government officials on September 7, Pashinian claimed Azerbaijan was conducting an “ongoing military buildup along the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-Azerbaijan border.”
There was no immediate comment from Azerbaijani officials.
The comments come days after both Azerbaijan and Armenia reported casualties after intense shelling near their common border, northwest of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, on September 1.
The escalation comes amid a continuing crisis over Nagorno-Karabakh where Yerevan and local ethnic Armenian authorities accuse Baku of continuing its “illegal blockade” of the region, resulting in severe shortages of food, fuel, and other basic products.
With tensions rising, Armenia announced on September 6 that it will host a joint army exercise with the United States next week.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said the purpose of the Sept. 11-20 Eagle Partner 2023 exercise was to prepare its forces to take part in international peacekeeping missions.
A U.S. military spokesperson said 85 U.S. soldiers and 175 Armenians would take part, according to Reuters.
The planned drill comes after Pashinian accused Russia of failing to protect Armenia against what he described as continuing aggression from Azerbaijan.
Russia, which has a military base in Armenia, maintains a peacekeeping force in the region to uphold an agreement that ended a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020.
On September 7, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the planned joint military drill was unhelpful.
"In this situation, holding such exercises does not contribute to stabilizing the situation in any case and strengthening the atmosphere of mutual trust in the region," Peskov said.
Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but inhabited primarily by ethnic Armenians, has been a source of conflict between the two Caucasus neighbors since before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.