Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked Armenian and Azerbaijan leaders to come to Moscow to discuss a possible cease fire Friday.
Putin plans to hold peace talks with the foreign ministers of the two countries in Moscow Friday.
The Russian leader wants the fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region to stop for humanitarian reasons. Over the past two weeks, clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijan forces had escalated to dangerous levels with hundreds of lives already lost in various skirmishes.
"The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia are being invited to Moscow October 9. The president of Russia is issuing a call to halt the fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh on humanitarian grounds in order to exchange dead bodies and prisoners," the Kremlin said in a published statement.
The Armenian government previously stated that it was not willing to engage in any peace talks as long as clashes are still ongoing. Azerbaijan had previously been invited to talk about the dispute by the United States, Russia and France in Geneva. However, expectations on a positive outcome were extremely given that Armenia was not present at the closed-door talks.
On Thursday, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of bombing a historic cathedral located in Nagorno-Karabakh. Officials said that several journalists were injured during the initial bombardment, which destroyed large parts of the structure. Officials slammed Azerbaijan troop for targeting the church, which it said had no military or strategic significance.
Since the start of the clash, hundreds of soldiers and civilians have reportedly been killed, making the two-week clash the deadliest since the 1994 cease fire. Both sides have claimed that they had inflicted heavy damages against each other, including the destruction of tanks, helicopters and vital military installations. Both countries have also accused each other of blatantly targeting civilian areas, resulting in the loss of hundreds of innocent lives.
Azerbaijan denied that it had fired first, claiming that Armenia was the one that attacked first. As a result of the fighting, thousands of people from both sides had to be evacuated. Dozens of homes and civilian structures have so far been leveled due to heavy bombardment.
