Armenia’s prime minister says quick border demarcation needed to avoid new conflict with Azerbaijan

By AVET DEMOURIAN
Associated Press

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia’s prime minister says the Caucasus nation needs to quickly delimit the border with neighboring Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities. Last year, Azerbaijan waged a lightning military campaign to reclaim the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatists’ rule there. The two sides have agreed to begin negotiations on a peace treaty, but many residents of Armenia’s border regions have resisted the demarcation effort, seeing it as Azerbaijan’s encroachment on the areas they consider their own. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has warned that Armenia’s refusal to delineate the border “would mean that a war could erupt by the end of the week.”