Armenia, Azerbaijan Trade Blame for Clashes that Killed 155

Relatives of servicemen, who were wounded in night border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, gather outside a military hospital in Yerevan on September 13, 2022. (AFP)
Relatives of servicemen, who were wounded in night border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, gather outside a military hospital in Yerevan on September 13, 2022. (AFP)
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Armenia, Azerbaijan Trade Blame for Clashes that Killed 155

Relatives of servicemen, who were wounded in night border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, gather outside a military hospital in Yerevan on September 13, 2022. (AFP)
Relatives of servicemen, who were wounded in night border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, gather outside a military hospital in Yerevan on September 13, 2022. (AFP)

Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of instigating new rounds of shelling across their borders Wednesday and reported that 155 troops from the two countries have died since hostilities reignited between the two longtime adversaries this week.

Armenia's Defense Ministry accused Azerbaijani forces of launching combat drones in the direction of the Armenian resort town of Jermuk overnight and renewing shelling with artillery and mortars in the morning in the direction of Jermuk and the village of Verin Shorzha.

The Azerbaijani military, in turn, charged that Armenian forces shelled its positions in the Kalbajar and Lachin districts of Azerbaijan, near the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said 105 of his country's have been killed since fighting erupted early Tuesday, while Azerbaijan said it lost 50 troops.

Azerbaijani authorities said they were ready to unilaterally hand over the bodies of up to 100 Armenian soldiers.

The two ex-Soviet countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories held by Armenian forces. More than 6,700 people died in the fighting, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal. Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal.

Russia moved quickly on Tuesday to negotiate an end to the latest hostilities, but a ceasefire it sought to broker has failed to hold. The two sides traded blame for violations of the ceasefire, while the international community urged calm.

“Despite the appeals of the international community and the reached cease-fire agreement, Armenian armed forces continue attacks and provocations in the state border using artillery and other heavy weapons,” Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

It said two Azerbaijani civilians were injured by the Armenian shelling of the Kalbajar and Lachin districts.

The ministry rejected as an “absolute lie” Armenia's claim that Azerbaijani troops had fired on a Russian military outpost in Armenia. It alleged Armenia was making such assertions in an attempt to turn a Moscow-dominated security alliance “into a tool for its dirty deeds.”

Pashinyan said Wednesday that his government has asked Russia for military support under a friendship treaty between the countries, and also requested assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

“Our allies are Russia and the CSTO,” Pashinyan said, adding that the collective security pact states that an aggression against one member is an aggression against all.

“We don't see a military interference as the only possibility, because there are also political and diplomatic options,” Pashinyan said, speaking in his nation's parliament.

Moscow has engaged in a delicate balancing act in seeking to maintain friendly ties with both nations. It has strong economic and security ties with Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base, while also has been developing close cooperation with oil-rich Azerbaijan.

Some observers saw the outbreak of fighting as an attempt by Azerbaijan to force Armenian authorities into faster implementation of some of the provisions of the 2020 peace deal, such as the opening of transport corridors via its territory.

“Azerbaijan has bigger military potential, and so it tries to dictate its conditions to Armenia and use force to push for diplomatic decisions it wants,” Sergei Markedonov, a Russian expert on the South Caucasus region, wrote in a commentary.

Markedonov noted that the current flare-up of hostilities comes just as Russia has been forced to pull back from areas in northeastern Ukraine after a Ukrainian counteroffensive, adding that Armenia’s request for assistance has put Russia in a precarious position.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of other CSTO members discussed the situation in a call late Tuesday, urging a quick cessation of hostilities. They agreed to send a mission of top officials from the security alliance to the area.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the mission will deliver a report assessing the developments to the leaders of CSTO member states. “The situation has remained tense,” Peskov said in Wednesday's conference call with reporters.

On Friday, Putin is set to hold a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where they both plan to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security grouping dominated by Russia and China.

The Armenian government said Pashinyan, who also was due to attend the summit, would not show up because of the fighting.

In Washington, a group of lawmakers supporting Armenia lobbied the Biden administration. US Rep. Adam Schiff, the influential Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and four other members of Congress called on the White House and State Department to “unequivocally condemn Azerbaijan’s actions and cease all assistance” to Azerbaijan.



Netanyahu Survives Opposition Bid to Dissolve Parliament

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Netanyahu Survives Opposition Bid to Dissolve Parliament

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government survived an opposition bid to dissolve parliament on Thursday, as lawmakers rejected a bill that could have paved the way for snap elections.

Out of the Knesset's 120 members, 61 voted against the proposal, with 53 in favor.

The opposition had introduced the bill hoping to force elections with the help of ultra-Orthodox parties in the governing coalition angry at Netanyahu over the contentious issue of exemptions from military service for their community.

While the opposition is composed mainly of centrist and leftist groups, ultra-Orthodox parties that are propping up Netanyahu's government had earlier threatened to back the motion.

The results of the vote Thursday morning, however, showed that most ultra-Orthodox lawmakers ultimately did not back the opposition bill, with just a small number voting in favor.

The opposition will now have to wait six months before it can try again.

Before the vote, Yuli Edelstein, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, announced that after lengthy discussions, parties had agreed on the "principles on which the draft conscription law will be based".

Edelstein, who chairs the foreign affairs and defense committee, did not specify the terms of the agreement.

"As I said all along -- only a real, effective bill that leads to an expansion of the (Israeli military's) recruitment base will emerge from the committee I chair," he wrote on social media platform X.

"This is historic news, and we are on the path to real reform in Israeli society and strengthening the security of the State of Israel."

Edelstein had earlier put forward a bill aimed at increasing the number of ultra-Orthodox conscripted, and tightening the penalties for those who refuse to serve.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, meanwhile, said the government was seeing the beginning of the end.

"When coalitions begin to fall apart, they fall apart. It started and this is what it looks like when a government begins to collapse," he said.

Ultra-Orthodox parties had been given a choice between losing a law on their exemption from military service, or losing their place in the government, and they chose exemption, Lapid added.

"The government helped them... organize the exemption of tens of thousands of healthy young people," he said, referring to ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi hit back, saying the coalition government was "moving forward" and "stronger than ever".

Earlier on Wednesday, opposition leaders had said their decision to bring the dissolution bill to the Knesset for a vote was "made unanimously and is binding on all factions".

They said that all opposition parties would freeze their lawmaking activities to focus on "the overthrow of the government".

Netanyahu's coalition is one of the most right-wing in the country's history. It includes two ultra-Orthodox parties -- Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ).

The two parties had threatened to back the motion for early elections.

'Existential danger'

Military service is mandatory in Israel but, under a ruling that dates back to the country's creation when the ultra-Orthodox were a very small community, men who devote themselves full-time to the study of Jewish scripture are given a de facto pass.

Whether that should change has been a long-running issue.

Efforts to scrap the exemption have intensified during the nearly 20-month war in Gaza as the military looks for extra manpower.

Netanyahu is under pressure from his Likud party to draft more ultra-Orthodox men -- a red line for parties such as Shas, who demand a law guaranteeing their constituents permanent exemption from military service.

Ahead of the vote in the early hours of Thursday morning, Israeli media reported that officials from Netanyahu's coalition were holding talks with ultra-Orthodox leaders hoping to find common ground.

In an apparent bid to allow time for those negotiations, Netanyahu's coalition filled the Knesset's agenda with bills to delay the vote.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that bringing down the government during wartime would pose "an existential danger" to Israel's future.

"History will not forgive anyone who drags the state of Israel into elections during a war," Smotrich told parliament, adding that there was a "national and security need" for ultra-Orthodox to fight in the military.

Netanyahu's government is a coalition between his Likud party, far-right groups and ultra-Orthodox parties, whose departure would leave it without a parliamentary majority.