2 Indian nationals injured by Azerbaijani shelling in Armenia

By Mark Dovich

Two Indian nationals were injured Wednesday morning by Azerbaijani shelling in the Armenian border village of Yeraskh, where tensions have been high since the end of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

In a statement, Armenia’s Defense Ministry said the two men were construction workers at a planned scrap metal plant in Yeraskh, a small village on Armenia’s western border with the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan.

The governor of the Ararat region, where Yeraskh is located, said the two men were being treated in a regional hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

India’s embassy in Yerevan did not immediately comment on the matter.

Yeraskh has come under Azerbaijani fire three times in the past two days, according to Armenia’s Defense Ministry.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry has acknowledged shelling Yeraskh, but said Armenian units opened fire first, prompting “retaliatory measures.”

Yerevan has dismissed Baku’s claims as disinformation.

What’s the context?

Recent weeks have seen tensions again rising in the region, with Yerevan and Baku accusing each other of violating the 2020 ceasefire statement almost daily. On Tuesday, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry warned Azerbaijan was “preparing the ground for further aggression” in the region.

While violent outbursts in border areas regularly result in Armenian and Azerbaijani casualties, it is exceedingly rare for foreign nationals to be injured along the two countries’ undelimited border.

Why Yeraskh?

Earlier this month, Armenia confirmed that a “sizable Armenian-American metallurgical plant” was being built in Yeraskh. The investigative outlet Hetq has named the facility’s owners as Bobby Kang, a U.S. national, and Grigor Ter-Ghazaryan, an Armenian citizen.

Last week, Azerbaijan’s Ecology Ministry condemned the project, saying the steel plant will “harm the environmental safety of the region” and is being built in violation of a United Nations convention regulating potential cross-border environmental damage.

Armenia’s Environment Ministry has dismissed those claims as “baseless” allegations whose “only real purpose…is to hinder Armenia’s economic development.”

Also read: Armenia’s largest gold mine partially closed over shelling from Azerbaijan

What’s more, Yeraskh forms one end of a shuttered, Soviet-era railway connecting Armenia and Azerbaijan via Nakhichevan. Earlier this month, the deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia met in Moscow for talks on restoring the route.

Despite reported progress at the meeting, Armenian and Azerbaijani officials have since made conflicting statements on the issue, suggesting significant disagreements remain.

Over the weekend, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev said Russia will control the railway. His Armenian counterpart, Mher Grigoryan, quickly hit back that “no such agreement” had been reached.

In the ceasefire statement that ended large-scale hostilities in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, Yerevan and Baku agreed to reopen “all economic and transport connections in the region.” The Kremlin-brokered ceasefire says Russian border guards will be “responsible for overseeing” those routes.

Armenia has estimated that repairing its sections of the railway will take several years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.