Armenia said Monday its foreign minister would meet his counterpart from Azerbaijan in their first talks after deadly border clashes between the arch foes last week jeopardised a peace process.
The national security council in Armenia meanwhile on Monday revised its death toll from the fighting last week from 136 to 207, taking total fatalities on both sides to 286.
“At the initiative of the American side, a trilateral meeting between (Armenian foreign minister) Ararat Mirzoyan, (US Secretary of State) Antony Blinken and (Azerbaijani counterpart) Jeyhun Bayramov will take place today in New York,” the Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The flare up last week was the worst fighting since the 2020 war and has jeopardised nascent peace process between the arch foes.
The clashes ended after two days with US mediation.
The new Armenian toll included two civilians, the security council said.
“Two civilians are missing, 293 troops and three civilians were wounded and 20 troops were captured,” it added.
Baku has reported 79 deaths among its military.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during a visit to Yerevan Sunday, blamed Baku for “illegal” attacks on Armenia, condemning an “assault on the sovereignty” of the country.
Washington’s ties are deepening with Yerevan whose traditional ally Moscow is distracted with its invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has close ties with both Baku and Yerevan. It is obligated to intervene if Armenia is invaded under a security pact, but did not rush to help despite an appeal from Yerevan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars — in the 1990s and in 2020 — over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan.
A six-week war in 2020 claimed the lives of more than 6,500 troops from both sides and ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow deployed about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.
