An EU spokeswoman says recent violations of the cease-fire on the front lines of Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region are “a stark reminder that the status quo is unsustainable.”
EU foreign affairs spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in a June 22 statement that the bloc expects “deescalation and restraint in deeds as well as in words.”
Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years.
Armenian-backed separatists seized the mainly Armenian-populated region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people.
Diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict have brought little progress.
Kocijancic’s statement comes after the separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh said on June 16 that Azerbaijani forces had killed three of their soldiers on the front lines.
On June 19, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group mediating talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia called upon the parties to "reengage in negotiations on substance, in good faith and with political will."