YEREVAN: Arch enemies Armenia Y Azerbaijan on Sunday they accused each other of starting deadly clashes that claimed at least 23 lives during a decades-long territorial dispute and threatened to lure regional powers Russia and Turkey.
The worst fighting since 2016 has raised the specter of a new war between long-time rivals Azerbaijan and Armenia, which have been locked for decades in a territorial dispute over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, backed by Armenia.
Sixteen Armenian separatist fighters were killed and more than 100 injured in the clashes, rebel officials said.
Both parties also reported victims, including at least one Armenian woman and child. Baku said an Azerbaijani family of five was killed in a bombardment launched by Armenian separatists.
A major clash between Muslim Azerbaijan and Armenia’s Christian majority threatened to involve regional players from Moscow and Ankara, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called on world powers to prevent Turkey from getting involved in the conflict.
“We are on the brink of a full-scale war in the southern Caucasus,” warned Pashinyan.
The “authoritarian regime of Azerbaijan has once again declared war on the Armenian people,” he added.
France, Germany and the EU were quick to call for an “immediate ceasefire” as Pope Francis prayed for peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the military outbreak with Pashinyan and called for “an end to hostilities.”
“The Russian side expressed serious concern over the resumption of large-scale clashes,” the Kremlin said.
But Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, blamed Yerevan for the outbreak and promised Baku its “full support.”
“The Turkish people will support our Azerbaijani brothers with all our means as always,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted.
Azerbaijan accused the Armenian forces of violating a ceasefire, saying it had launched a counteroffensive to “guarantee the safety of the population”, using tanks, artillery missiles, combat aircraft and drones.
Azerbaijan imposed martial law and a curfew on large cities and said it had captured from Armenian rebels a strategic mountain that helps control transportation communications between Yerevan and the Armenian-controlled enclave.
In a televised address to the nation early Sunday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev promised victory over the Armenian forces.
“Our cause is just and we will win,” he said, echoing a famous quote from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s speech at the outbreak of World War II in Russia.
“Karabakh is Azerbaijan,” he said.
Both Armenia and Karabakh declared martial law and military mobilization.
“Get ready to defend our sacred homeland,” Pashinyan said on Facebook.
Armenia said Azerbaijan attacked civilian settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh, including the main city, Stepanakert.
Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, said she had traveled to a hospital in Stepanakert to be with her “brothers and sisters” from Karabakh.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said there were reports of deaths and injuries. “Great damage has been inflicted on many homes and civil infrastructure,” he said.
Karabakh ombudsman Artak Beglaryan pointed to “civilian casualties”, while Armenia said a woman and a child were killed.
Ethnic Armenian separatists seized Baku’s Nagorno-Karabakh region in a war in the 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives.
Talks to resolve one of the worst conflicts to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 have largely stalled since the 1994 ceasefire agreement.
France, Russia and the United States have mediated peace efforts such as the “Minsk Group,” but the last big push for a peace deal collapsed in 2010.
Pope Francis told the crowds in St. Peter’s Square that he was praying for peace and called for “concrete gestures of good will and brotherhood” from the warring sides.
Political observers said world powers should step up talks to stop the conflict.
“We are one step away from a full-scale war,” Olesya Vartanyan of the International Crisis Group told AFP.
“One of the main reasons for the current escalation is the lack of proactive international mediation between the parties for weeks,” he added.
“The war is resuming. It is time for Russia, France and the United States, individually and jointly, to stop it,” tweeted Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Karabakh separatist leader Arayik Harutyunyan accused Ankara of sending mercenaries to Azerbaijan.
On Sunday morning, Azerbaijan launched an “active bombardment” along the Karabakh front line, including civilian targets, and in Stepanakert, the Karabakh presidency said.
The rebel defense ministry said its troops shot down four Azerbaijani helicopters and 15 drones, while Baku denied the claim.
In July, heavy fighting along the two countries’ shared border, hundreds of kilometers from Karabakh, claimed the lives of at least 17 soldiers from both sides.
Raising the stakes, Azerbaijan at the time threatened to attack Armenia’s nuclear power plant if Yerevan attacked strategic facilities.
During the worst recent fighting in April 2016, around 110 people were killed.
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