TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a phone call and expressed "serious concern" over an escalation in the standoff over Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia's Foreign Ministry said.





The ministry added in a statement on Monday that both sides had called for a swift cessation in fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, Reuters reported.

At least 33 people have been killed and more than 200 injured so far as a result of violence escalation in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which lies inside Azerbaijan, the UN has said in a report.

Ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control of the mountainous Nagorny Karabakh region in an early 1990s war that claimed some 30,000 lives. The foes have never signed a peace deal despite the 1994 ceasefire.

By Tasnim News Agency