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According to official accounts, the conflict left more than 300 dead.
This Saturday, some neighbors left their houses to look at the sky, after several days of bombing in which they had to flee or take refuge in basements.
White doves fly near the Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Stepanakert, in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, this Friday (9) – Photo: AP Photo
But the authorities of the separatist enclave and the Azerbaijani forces accused each other, just before the truce, of bombing the area.
“Azerbaijani forces launched an attack at 12:05 pm,” the Armenian Defense Ministry said.
“Armenia flagrantly violates the ceasefire, trying to attack in the directions of Fizuli-Jebrail and Agdam-Terter,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.
A man sees a house destroyed in clashes between the pro-Armenian army and Azerbaijani forces in Stepanakert, the largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh, this Friday (9) – Photo: AP Photo
The Armenian and Azerbaijani governments agreed to end the fighting in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said early Saturday morning.
At a meeting in Moscow, Armenian and Azerbaijani diplomats agreed to exchange prisoners of war and return the bodies of the victims of the fighting. The Russian government mediated the negotiation.
The talks lasted around 10 hours, according to the British broadcaster BBC.
The Russian foreign minister said the two countries will now have “substantive dialogues.”
Located in the Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan belonged to the Soviet Union (1922-1991). Russia has a military alliance with the Armenians, but currently maintains good relations with the Azerbaijani government and is not interested in a conflict in the region.
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
Map of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh – Photo: Alexandre Mauro / G1
Azerbaijani soldiers and pro-Armenian separatist forces that control Nagorno-Karabakh, a region also known as Artsakh, clashed on September 27. It was the worst series of clashes since the war between 1988 and 1994, when tens of thousands of people were killed in the territorial dispute.
- KNOW MORE: The old dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus
The two parties accused each other of the start of hostilities.
Azerbaijan is trying to regain control of the region, which is formally in Azerbaijani territory, while Armenia wants to maintain the autonomy status of the area agreed since the 1990s by the countries of the Minsk Group: Russia, the United States and France.
On the one hand, the Armenians argue that they are the ethnic majority and, by self-determination of the peoples, they have the right to control Nagorno-Karabakh. On the other hand, the Azeris understand that they also have that region as part of the historical territory of Azerbaijan.
