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“After a difficult summer, Azerbaijan and Armenia’s precarious conflict is in danger of erupting,” Mir Online Canadian news agency says in an article published on Sept.1.

“The violence continues today, as skirmishes occur regularly along constantly shifting boundary lines, resulting in regular military and civilian casualties.

The largest outbreak of violence in the past few years was the Four Day War of 2016, in which hundreds of soldiers and civilians on both sides were killed or wounded.

At first, it seemed as though the tragedy of the Four Day War would provide an opportunity for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Minsk Group, responsible for reaching a peace settlement, to restart talks and make progress towards conflict resolution. Unfortunately, as of this summer’s developments, it is evident that these brokering organizations were unable to prevent escalating tension and have completely failed to mediate a conflict that is rapidly snowballing towards all-out war,” Mir Online writes.

“However, what makes the conflict so volatile, and so significant on the world stage, is the role of world players who would likely be drawn in should war break out again.

For a conflict in which mediation is unlikely to succeed in the short term, calls for a “final solution” from either side are especially concerning, evoking memories of the past decades’ massacres, in which both Armenians and Azerbaijanis have been persecuted. If the states of Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to use propaganda to cultivate cultures of hatred, violence will no longer be avoidable,” reads the article.

The source also reminded that in 2004, an Azeri army officer named Ramil Safarov axed to death sleeping Armenian military officer Gurgen Margaryan at a NATO training conference in Budapest.

“After Safarov had spent five years in Hungarian prison, Azerbaijan requested to repatriate him and have him serve the remainder of his sentence in his homeland. The request was granted. Upon returning to Azerbaijan, however, Safarov was released a free man, receiving a hero’s welcome and a central plaza in Baku named in his honour,” the article noted.