Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) announced on January 25 that it had identified eight additional minefields through recent interviews with Karabakh Armenian military personnel who evacuated the region along with its entire civilian population following Azerbaijan’s military offensive in September 2023. The maps of these minefields will be handed over to the Azerbaijani side “in the coming days,” stated the NSS in a release.

The announcement followed PM Nikol Pashinyan’s visit to the NSS headquarters in Yerevan and his meeting with the security agency’s leadership the day before. Pashinyan had indicated his willingness to make further concessions to Azerbaijan.

In response to the NSS statement, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry remarked that Armenia continues to demonstrate a lack of seriousness in assisting Azerbaijan with the clearance of landmines from the territories recaptured by Azerbaijan during the 2020 war and last September.

“This step cannot be assessed as a confidence-building measure. Azerbaijan expects Armenia to present concrete maps of all mined territories,” it said.