At least 16 people, including an army general, have been killed in fighting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the worst outbreak of hostilities in years.
Skirmishes on the volatile border between the two southern Caucasus nations began on Sunday. Azerbaijan said it has lost 11 service personnel and one civilian in three days of fighting, and Armenia said four of its soldiers were killed on Tuesday.
The two neighbors have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian-backed forces since the war ended in 1994. International efforts to resolve the conflict have stalled. .
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have frequently participated in clashes. The current skirmishes appear to mark the gravest peak in hostilities since 2016, when scores were killed in four days of fighting.
The latest incident began when Armenian and Azerbaijani troops exchanged fire on the northern section of their border. Authorities in both countries blamed each other for starting the fighting and said the sporadic shelling had continued.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said two high-ranking officers were killed on Tuesday along with five other service members.
Armenian officials claimed that Azerbaijani drones launched an attack on the city of Berd, targeting the civil infrastructure. Defense Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan said one of the drones was shot down.
Stepanyan also claimed that the Azerbaijani army used civilians as shields, placing artillery near the village of Dondar Gushchu in the Tovuz district, about 6 miles from the border.
The Azerbaijani army denied that it had lost a drone and, in turn, claimed that its forces shot down an Armenian drone and destroyed an Armenian artillery system and its crew.
As hostilities continued, Armenia also accused Azerbaijan of launching cyber attacks on Armenian government websites.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday accused Azerbaijan of provoking the fighting and warned that “he would be responsible for the unpredictable consequences.” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev denounced what he described as “another provocation by Armenia” and promised to protect the national territory of Azerbaijan.
Turkey, which has close ethnic and cultural ties to Azerbaijan, has expressed strong support for its government in the conflict.
The United States and Russia, which co-chair the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that has tried to negotiate a solution to the conflict, have condemned the violence and called for restraint.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had separate calls with his counterparts in Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was “deeply concerned” about the fighting and is ready to mediate.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern. His spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said in a statement that the UN chief “urges an immediate end to the fighting and calls on all involved to take immediate steps to reduce the situation and refrain from provocative rhetoric.”
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