Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiated a cease-fire to end a flare-up of fighting that has killed 155 soldiers from both sides, a senior Armenian official said early Thursday. Armen Grigoryan, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, announced the truce in televised remarks, saying it took effect hours earlier, at 8 p.m. (1600 GMT) Wednesday. A previous cease-fire that Russia brokered Tuesday quickly failed. Several hours before Grigoryan’s announcement, Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported that shelling had ceased but it didn’t mention the cease-fire deal. There was no immediate comment from Azerbaijan’s government. The cease-fire declaration followed two days of heavy fighting that marked the largest outbreak of hostilities between the two longtime adversaries in nearly two years. Late Wednesday, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Armenia’s capital accusing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of betraying his country by trying to appease Azerbaijan and demanding his resignation. Armenia and Azerbaijan traded blame for the hostilities, with Armenian authorities accusing Baku of unprovoked aggression and Azerbaijani officials saying their country was responding to Armenian shelling. Also read; Armenia, Azerbaijan report 99 troops killed in border clash Pashinyan said 105 of his country’s soldiers had been killed since fighting erupted early Tuesday, while Azerbaijan said it lost 50. Azerbaijani authorities said they were ready to unilaterally hand over the bodies of up to 100 Armenian soldiers. The 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. Pashinyan said Wednesday that Azerbaijani forces have occupied 10 square kilometers (nearly 4 square miles) of Armenia’s territory since the fighting began. He told lawmakers 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 military intervention as the only possibility, because there are also political and diplomatic options,” Pashinyan said, speaking in his nation’s parliament. He told lawmakers that Armenia is ready to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in a future peace treaty, provided that it relinquishes control of areas in Armenia its forces have seized. “We want to sign a document, for which many people will criticize and denounce us and call us traitors, and they may even decide to remove us from office, but we would be grateful if Armenia gets a lasting peace and security as a result of it,” Pashinyan said. Some in the opposition saw the statement as a sign of Pashinyan’s readiness to cave in to Azerbaijani demands and recognize Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh. Thousands of angry protesters quickly descended on the government’s headquarters, accusing Pashinyan of treason and demanding he step down. Pashinyan angrily denied reports alleging that he had signed a deal accepting Azerbaijani demands as an “information attack.” Grigoryan, the Security Council’s secretary, denounced the protests in Yerevan, describing them as an attempt to destroy the state. Arayik Harutyunyan, the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, reacted to the uproar by saying that the region will not agree to come into the Azerbaijani fold and will continue pushing for its independence. As tensions rose in Yerevan, 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, but also maintains 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. 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 that Pashinyan, who also was due to attend the summit, would not show up because of the situation in the country. In Washington, a group of lawmakers supporting Armenia lobbied the Biden administration. U.S. 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.

Fighting on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan killed about 100 troops Tuesday as attacks on both sides fed fears of broader hostilities breaking out between the longtime adversaries. Armenia said at least 49 of its soldiers were killed; Azerbaijan said it lost 50. The fighting erupted minutes after midnight with Azerbaijani forces unleashing an artillery barrage and drone attacks in many sections of Armenian territory, according to Armenia’s Defense Ministry. It said shelling grew less intense during the day but Azerbaijani troops were trying to advance into Armenian territory. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said it was responding to a “large-scale provocation” by Armenia late Monday and early Tuesday. It said Armenian troops planted mines and fired on Azerbaijani military positions. The two 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. Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week war in 2020 that killed more than 6,600 people and ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal. Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal. Read: After hiking fuel price by 30%, Indonesia considering buying cheap Russian oil The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday urged both parties “to refrain from further escalation and show restraint.” Moscow has engaged in a delicate balancing act in seeking to maintain friendly ties with both ex-Soviet 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. The international community also urged calm. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Armenia and Azerbaijan “to take immediate steps to deescalate tensions, exercise maximum restraint and resolve any outstanding issues through dialogue” and implement previous agreements, his spokesman said. The U.N. Security Council scheduled closed consultations Wednesday on the renewed fighting. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called Russian President Vladimir Putin and later also had calls with French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Charles Michel and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by phone with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with both Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev. The U.S. has a special envoy in the region, Blinken said, “and my hope is that we can move this from conflict back to the negotiating table and back to trying to build a peace.” Speaking in parliament early Tuesday, Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of having had an uncompromising stance at recent European Union-brokered talks in Brussels. Read: UN chief appeals to world to help badly flood-hit Pakistan Armenia said the Azerbaijani shelling Tuesday damaged civilian infrastructure and wounded an unspecified number of people. On Facebook, Aliyev expressed condolences “to the families and relatives of our servicemen who died on September 13 while preventing large-scale provocations committed by the Armenian armed forces in the direction of the Kalbajar, Lachin, Dashkasan and Zangilan regions of Azerbaijan.” Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, also placed the blame for the violence on Armenia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed support for Aliyev and said in a statement that Turkey and Azerbaijan are “brotherly ... in all matters.” The governor of Gegharkunik province, one of the regions that came under Azerbaijani shelling, said there was a 40-minute lull in the fighting, apparently reflecting Moscow’s attempt to negotiate a truce, before it later resumed. The governor, Karen Sarkisyan, said four Armenian troops in his region were killed and another 43 were wounded by the shelling. The Armenian government said it would officially ask Russia for assistance under a friendship treaty between the countries, and also appeal to the United Nations and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated security alliance of ex-Soviet nations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refrained from comment on Armenia’s request but added during a conference call with reporters that Putin was “taking every effort to help de-escalate tensions.”

In Iran, the urgency of getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is growing by the day. A crush of new cases fueled by the fast-spreading delta variant has threatened to overwhelm Iranian hospitals with breathless patients too numerous to handle. But as deaths mount, and the sense swells that protection for most citizens remains far-off, thousands of desperate Iranians are taking matters into their own hands: They’re flocking to neighboring Armenia. Read:Drone attacks by Iraqi militias reflect Iran's waning hold In the ex-Soviet Caucasus nation, where vaccine uptake has remained sluggish amid widespread vaccine hesitancy, authorities have been doling out free doses to foreign visitors — a boon for Iranians afraid for their lives and sick of waiting. “I just want her to get the jab as soon as possible,” said Ahmad Reza Bagheri, a 23-year-old jeweler at a bus stop in Tehran, gesturing to his diabetic mother who he was joining on the winding 20-hour road trip to Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. Bagheri’s uncle had already received his first dose in the city and would soon get his second. Such stories have dominated Iranian social media in recent weeks, as hordes of Iranians head to Armenia by bus and plane. Acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said last week that foreigners, including residents, have accounted for up to half of about 110,000 people who were vaccinated in the country. Armenia administers AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s CoronaVac vaccines. In Iran, which has the highest COVID-19 death toll in the Middle East, less than 2% of the country’s 84 million people have received both doses, according to the scientific publication Our World in Data. Read: Iran's sole nuclear power plant undergoes emergency shutdown Although the sanctions-hit country has imported some Russian and Chinese vaccines, joined the U.N.-supported COVAX program for vaccine sharing and developed three of its own vaccines, doses remain scarce. Authorities have yet to inoculate nonmedical workers and those under age 60, promising that mass vaccinations will start in September. “I can’t wait such a long time for vaccination,” said Ali Saeedi, a 39-year-old garment trader also waiting to embark on the journey at a Tehran bus station. “Officials have delayed their plans for public vaccination many times. I’m going to Armenia to make it happen.” Others, like 27-year-old secretary Bahareh Khanai, see the trip as an act of national service, easing the daunting inoculation task facing Iranian authorities. It remains unclear just how many Iranians have made the trip to get vaccinated, as Armenia also remains a popular summer getaway spot. But each day, dozens of buses, taxis and flights ferry an estimated 500 Iranians across the border. Airlines have added three weekly flights from Iran to Yerevan. The cost of bus tours has doubled as thousands devise plans. Travel agents who watched the pandemic ravage their industry have seen an unprecedented surge in business. “The number of our customers for the Armenia tour has tripled in recent weeks,” said Ahmad, the manager of a tour agency in Tehran who declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals. The surge of Iranians has inundated Armenia’s coronavirus testing centers, leaving scores stranded in the buffer zone, Iranian semiofficial ILNA news agency reported, with several fainting from the heat. Roughly 160 kilometers (100 miles) away in Yerevan, hundreds of Iranians lined up to get a vaccine shot, with some sleeping on the streets to secure a place. Hope sustains them through the long lines under an unforgiving sun. In the streets of the Armenian capital, Iranians cavort to Farsi music outside vaccine centers, clapping as they receive doses, videos show. “We couldn’t expect that our humanitarian act would become popular and spread so much and that we would have a big flow of foreigners,” Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan told reporters. “Our citizens are our priority, but I repeat again that the pandemic doesn’t recognize citizenship.” But even as Armenian authorities encourage vaccination tourism, the sheer number of Iranians flooding vaccination centers has pushed Armenia to tighten the rules. At first, Iranian vaccine-seekers headed for clinics in the southern border town of Meghri. A local doctor, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, reported seeing at least 100 Iranians vaccinated there over the past few weeks. But last week the government decreed that foreign visitors can only receive a jab at five designated AstraZeneca mobile clinics in Yerevan, and, in an apparent bid to boost the country’s tourist sector that took effect Thursday, must spend at least 10 days in Armenia before getting vaccinated. After the new rule entered force, the crowds of Iranians waiting in the streets of Yerevan to get the shot in Yerevan dispersed but medical workers said that many have booked vaccinations for the following days in compliance with the 10-day minimal stay requirement. Now, the profile of Iranian visitors is changing, as cross-border bus jaunts become extended vacations, with some flights routed through Qatar. The surge in interest has also pushed up the price, putting the journey out of reach for all but the wealthy. Ethicists, who said they otherwise wouldn’t take issue with needy foreigners securing excess shots shunned by citizens, say the price hike and new 10-day requirement exacerbates the stark inequalities in the pandemic. “It increases the money and time required ... and so the inequity of who is going to be able to participate,” said Alison Bateman-House, an assistant professor of medical ethics at New York University. More broadly, she added, vaccination vacations, like all travel in a time of contagious virus variants, carries “unintended consequences” and increases “the possibility of disease transmission.” A fairer alternative, she noted, would be for Armenia to transfer its surplus doses to the international COVAX initiative. But for many in Iran, where scores are dying daily in an outbreak that has exhausted the health system and economy, the cost of waiting has grown too high. Mohammad Seifpour, a 48-year-old Tehran resident, grimly surveyed the crowds of Iranians at the Yerevan vaccine clinic. “This is just because of the horrible situation we are facing,” he said.

The systematic killing and deportation of more than a millions Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century was “genocide,” the United States formally declared on Saturday, as President Joe Biden used that precise word after the White House had avoided it for decades for fear of alienating ally Turkey. Turkey reacted with furor, with the foreign minister saying his country “will not be given lessons on our history from anyone.” A grateful Armenia said it appreciated Biden’s “principled position” as a step toward “the restoration of truth and historical justice.” Biden was following through on a campaign promise he made a year ago Saturday — the annual commemoration of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day — to recognize that the events that began in 1915 were a deliberate effort to wipe out Armenians. While previous presidents have offered somber reflections of the dark moment in history, they have studiously avoided using the term genocide out of concern that it would complicate relations with Turkey, a NATO ally and important power in the Middle East. But Biden campaigned on a promise to make human rights a central guidepost of his foreign policy. He argued last year that failing to call the atrocities against the Armenian people a genocide would pave the way for future mass atrocities. An estimated 2 million Armenians were deported and 1.5 million were killed in the events known as Metz Yeghern. “The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today,” Biden said in a statement. “We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a letter to Biden that recognition of the genocide “is important not only in terms of respecting the memory of 1.5 million innocent victims, but also in preventing the repetition of such crimes.” Also read: At ‘moment of peril,’ Biden opens global summit on climate Turkish officials struck back immediately. “We reject and denounce in the strongest terms the statement of the President of the US regarding the events of 1915 made under the pressure of radical Armenian circles and anti-Turkey groups,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that “words cannot change history or rewrite it” and Turkey “completely rejected” Biden’s statement. Minutes before Biden’s announcement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the Armenian community and patriarch of the Armenian church calling for not allowing “the culture of coexistence of Turks and Armenians ... to be forgotten.” He said the issue has been “politicized by third parties and turned into a tool of intervention against our country.” The U.S. Embassy and consulates in Turkey issued a demonstration alert, and announced their offices would be closed for routine services on Monday and Tuesday as a “precautionary measure.” They cautioned Americans to avoid areas around U.S. government buildings and exercise caution in locations where foreigners gather. During a telephone call Friday, Biden had informed Erdogan of his plan to issue the statement, said a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The U.S. and Turkish governments, in separate statements following Biden and Erdogan’s call, made no mention of the American plan to recognize the Armenian genocide. But the White House said Biden told Erdogan he wants to improve the two countries’ relationship and find “effective management of disagreements.” The two also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting at the NATO summit in Brussels in June. Also read: Hitting latest vaccine milestone, Biden pushes shots for all In Armenia on Saturday, people streamed to the hilltop complex in Yerevan, the capital, that memorializes the victims. Many laid flowers around the eternal flame, creating a wall of blooms two meters (seven feet) high. Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Avet Adonts, speaking at the memorial before Biden issued his statement, said a U.S. president using the term genocide would “serve as an example for the rest of the civilized world.” Biden’s call with Erdogan was his first since taking office more than three months ago. The delay had become a worrying sign in Ankara; Erdogan had good rapport with former President Donald Trump and had been hoping for a reset despite past friction with Biden. Erdogan reiterated his long-running claims that the U.S. is supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria who are affiliated with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK. The PKK has led an insurgency against Turkey for more than three decades. In recent years, Turkey has launched military operations against PKK enclaves in Turkey and in northern Iraq and against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. The State Department has designated the PKK a terrorist organization but has argued with Turkey over the group’s ties to the Syrian Kurds. Biden, during the campaign, drew ire from Turkish officials after an interview with The New York Times in which he spoke about supporting Turkey’s opposition against “autocrat” Erdogan. In 2019, Biden accused Trump of betraying U.S. allies, following Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, which paved the way for a Turkish military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish group. In 2014, when he was vice president, Biden apologized to Erdogan after suggesting in a speech that Turkey helped facilitate the rise of the Islamic State group by allowing foreign fighters to cross Turkey’s border with Syria. Lawmakers and Armenian American activists had lobbied Biden to make the genocide announcement on or before remembrance day. The closest that a U.S. president had come to recognizing the World War 1-era atrocities as genocide was in 1981 when Ronald Reagan uttered the words “Armenian genocide” during a Holocaust Remembrance Day event. But he did not make it U.S. policy. Also read: As Biden improves with vets, Afghanistan plan a plus to some House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, lamented that “the truth of these heinous crimes has too often been denied, its monstrosity minimized.” “History teaches us that if we ignore its darkest chapters, we are destined to witness the horrors of the past be repeated,” she added. Rep. Adam Schiff, also a California Democrat, praised Biden for following through on the pledge. “For Armenian-Americans and everyone who believes in human rights and the truth, today marks an historic milestone: President Biden has defied Turkish threats and recognized the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians for what it was — the first genocide of the 20th Century,” Schiff said in a statement. California is home to large concentrations of Armenian Americans. Salpi Ghazarian, director of the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies, said the recognition of genocide would resonate beyond Armenia and underscore Biden seriousness about respect for human rights as a central principle in his foreign policy. “Within the United States and outside the United States, the American commitment to basic human values has been questioned now for decades,” she said. “It is very important for people in the world to continue to have the hope and the faith that America’s aspirational values are still relevant, and that we can in fact do several things at once. We can in fact carry on trade and other relations with countries while also calling out the fact that a government cannot get away with murdering its own citizens.”

More than 3,000 troops took part in a military parade in Azerbaijan on Thursday to celebrate reclaiming control over broad swathes of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding lands in a conflict with Armenia.

Armenia and Azerbaijan reported more fighting on Tuesday over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, where clashes have continued for over three weeks despite two attempts at establishing a cease-fire.

Azerbaijan on Sunday accused Armenia of attacking large cities overnight in violation of the cease-fire deal brokered by Russia that seeks to end the worst outbreak of hostilities in the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The two sides traded blame for breaking the truce that took effect at noon (0800 GMT) with new attacks, and Azerbaijan’s top diplomat said the truce never entered force. The cease-fire announcement came overnight after 10 hours of talks in Moscow sponsored by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The deal stipulated that the cease-fire should pave the way for talks on settling the conflict. If the truce holds, it would mark a major diplomatic coup

Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of shelling a historic cathedral in the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, reports AP.