MOSCOW

The political crisis in Armenia does not affect the implementation of the agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Asked if the situation in Armenia creates risks for a cease-fire agreement, Peskov said: "So far everything [the agreement on Karabakh] is being implemented."

Peskov stressed that preserving the peace agreement is "very important."

In a separate statement, the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Armenia at a video meeting with the country's Security Council.

A political crisis broke in Armenia on Thursday, after Onik Gasparyan, the chief of General Staff of the Armenian army, along with other senior commanders released a statement calling for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to step down, and Pashinyan announced that he fired Gasparyan.

The unrest follows the end of a military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan last fall widely seen as a victory for the latter.

Relations between the former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

During the six week-conflict, which ended with a Russian-brokered truce, Azerbaijan liberated several strategic cities and nearly 300 of its settlements and villages from Armenian occupation.

Before this, about 20% of Azerbaijan's territory had been under illegal Armenian occupation for nearly three decades.