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Image posted, ARMENIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE BROCHURE BROCHURE
Armenia says Azerbaijan launched a major military offensive in the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region.
The two sides exchange accusations of violating the ceasefire agreement reached about a week ago.
Both parties confirmed that the fighting continued throughout the night. Each side said it suffered heavy losses on the other.
Azerbaijan accused Armenia of bombing cemeteries in the city of Tartre on Thursday during the funeral procession, resulting in the death of four mourners.
Each side defends its position in the ongoing conflict: Armenia says that the people of Armenian origin of the Nagorno-Karabakh population have the right to self-determination; On the other hand, Azerbaijan insists on its position to reject the independence of the region under any circumstances.
On September 27, the fiercest fighting broke out between the two sides since the war that broke out between them in the 1990s in the same region, killing some 30,000 people.
Observers fear that other parties could become embroiled in the conflict. Turkey announced its support for Azerbaijan and reports indicate that Ankara has increased its military exports to its Azerbaijani ally this year.
Turkey was the first country to recognize the independence of Azerbaijan in 1991. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged his country’s support for Azerbaijan.
Russia, on the other hand, maintains good relations with Armenia and maintains a military base there, but at the same time maintains close relations with the Azerbaijani government.
And there is France, whose president, Emmanuel Macron, had warned Turkey against what was said about the deployment of Syrian militants on the front lines in Nagorno Karabakh.
On Thursday, French representatives called on their country’s government to recognize the Republic of Artsakh (the Armenian name for the Nagorno-Karabakh region) and to initiate diplomatic relations with it, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had rejected calls by French parliamentarians to support the Armenians in the conflict, in order to preserve France’s position as an impartial mediator in the crisis.
The roots of the conflict
The Nagorno-Karabakh region is within the territory of Azerbaijan and is inhabited by an Armenian majority and is supported by neighboring Armenia.
The roots of the conflict go back more than a century, when the region was the scene of a competition for influence between Armenian Christians, Turkish Muslims and Persians.
After the end of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the new Soviet regime at that time established an autonomous region in Nagorno Karabakh with a majority Armenian population within the borders of the former Azerbaijan Soviet Republic at the beginning of the decade. 1920.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the Karabakh region declared itself an independent republic, causing the conflict to escalate and turn into all-out war. The “de facto” state was not recognized from the outside, not even by Armenia itself.
