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Armenia declared martial law and summoned army reservists after clashes escalated with neighboring Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, killing several people on Sunday.
Both sides blamed each other for starting the fighting in the Caucasus mountains, the worst since a five-day war in 2016 in which more than 100 people died. The Armenian Defense Ministry said it shot down two Azeri helicopters and hit three tanks and three drones in response to an air offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“For the homeland, for victory,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on Twitter. “We stand strong with our army to protect our homeland from the Azeri invasion.”
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said it was taking “retaliatory measures” to protect civilians from Armenia’s “large-scale provocations” in civilian areas near Nagorno-Karabakh that caused “serious” damage to infrastructure. He claimed to have destroyed 12 Armenian anti-aircraft systems and to have lost an Azeri helicopter.
The government took steps to limit Internet access in Azerbaijan “to avoid large-scale provocations by Armenia,” the Communications Ministry said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh government, backed by Armenia, said 10 soldiers and two civilians were killed, blaming Azerbaijan for the shelling in the area.
“The attack was coming. There were numerous signals, everyone saw them and did nothing for weeks, ”Olesya Vartanyan, regional analyst for International Crisis Group, wrote on Twitter. “Proactive international mediation was necessary. Many found reasons to approve of this attack. If you remain silent now, expect a real war. “
The European Union called for an immediate ceasefire and an “urgent” return to international negotiations to resolve the long-standing conflict, one of the bloodiest to result from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Sunday’s fighting was the latest outbreak in the decades-long struggle for Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave of fewer than 150,000 people that lies within the borders of Azerbaijan but has separated from Azerbaijan and runs its affairs with political support and Yerevan military.
The war began in the early 1990s when ethnic Armenian Christians in Nagorno-Karabakh fought against overwhelmingly Muslim control of Azerbaijan and claimed thousands of lives before a ceasefire was signed in 1994. The region is a source. major European energy supply through a pipeline that through Turkey.
Despite mediation by Western powers and Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been unable to reach a full peace agreement and regularly resume skirmishes along the line of contact. At least 20 people were killed in clashes in July some 300 kilometers north of the enclave.
Ilham Aliyev: ‘Karabakh is Azerbaijan. The enemy has tried to provoke us once again today, and I declare that our opponents will receive the punishment they deserve. ‘© AP
Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, said in a televised address to the nation on Sunday that the fighting “is a severe blow to the peace process,” according to Interfax. “Karabakh is Azerbaijan,” he said. “The enemy has tried to provoke us once again today, and I declare that our opponents will receive the punishment they deserve.”
Russia, the main mediator in the conflict and a close ally of Armenia, said there was “intensive shooting from both sides of the line of contact.” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov maintained “intense contacts” with both parties “to immediately cease fire and begin negotiations to stabilize the situation,” he added.
Turkey, Azerbaijan’s biggest sponsor, said Armenia was responsible for a “clear violation of international law” and had “demonstrated once again that it is the greatest obstacle to peace and stability in the region,” according to a statement from the ministry. Of Foreign Affairs.
Hopes for reconciliation rose in 2018 when Pashinyan, a former journalist, overthrew a “Karabakh clan” that had strictly controlled Armenia and supported the enclave in a revolution.
Armenia and Azerbaijan declared early last year that they would “prepare the population for peace” and worked to defuse incidents of shooting at the front.
However, Pashinyan continued to visit Nagorno-Karabakh on several occasions, including for the inauguration of its new president in May.
The lack of progress in the peace process has increased internal pressure on Azerbaijan after a major general, Polad Hashimov, was assassinated in clashes this summer. He was the highest ranking Azerbaijani officer to die in the conflict since the early 1990s.
More than 30,000 pro-war protesters demanded that Azerbaijan “end the quarantine and start the war” after the funeral of a soldier in Baku, the capital, and stormed the parliament building with little opposition from the police. Aliyev later fired his foreign minister for “futile negotiations” with the World Health Organization to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic in Karabakh.
