Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned that Armenia might be on the brink of a conflict with Azerbaijan if it doesn’t reach a compromise with Baku and relinquish control over four Azerbaijani villages it has held since the early 1990s. Pashinyan made these remarks during a meeting with residents of border areas in northern Armenia’s Tavush region, near the deserted Azerbaijani villages that Armenia has controlled for over three decades.

These four villages, strategically positioned along the main road between Yerevan and the Georgian border, hold significant importance for Armenia. Azerbaijan insists on the return of these territories, along with several enclaves entirely surrounded by Armenian land, as a prerequisite for a peace agreement to resolve the longstanding conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan reclaimed last September.

Pashinyan, as quoted by Russia’s TASS state news agency, warned that failure to compromise on the disputed villages could escalate tensions and potentially lead to a war with Azerbaijan “by the end of the week.” He emphasized his understanding of the dire consequences of such a conflict.

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Armenia suffered a significant setback last September when Azerbaijani forces swiftly regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh, causing nearly all of the region’s ethnic Armenian population to flee to Armenia. Despite international recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory, ethnic Armenians in the region had enjoyed de facto independence from Baku since the early 1990s conflict.