As peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan stall, violent flare-ups either in Nagorno-Karabakh or on their common border are increasingly likely, even if a large-scale Azerbaijani military operation or direct Iranian involvement in the conflict remains unlikely. On March 30, Azerbaijan's defense ministry said its soldiers had seized a number of territories near the border with Armenia. Several days earlier, the ministry also announced its units had taken ''necessary local control measures'' to cut off an alternative dirt road that Armenians had been using to access the Nagorno-Karabakh region amid Azerbaijan's ongoing blockage of the Lachin Corridor's main road connecting Armenia proper to the disputed territory. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan had warned on March 22 that a rise in ''sharp rhetoric and threats'' from Azerbaijan in recent days had raised the risk of ''new aggression against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh'' and ''ethnic cleansing.'' Azerbaijan's actions and Armenia's warnings are the...
