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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addresses the nation.
Source: PA Images
Strong fighting has broken out between Azerbaijan and Armenian separatists, claiming military and civilian casualties on both sides, including at least one child.
The worst clashes since 2016 have raised the possibility of a new war between the two counties, which have for decades been locked in a territorial dispute over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region, backed by Armenia.
A major showdown between the ex-Soviet Caucasus neighbors would draw in the big regional players Moscow and Ankara.
Russia, France, Germany and the EU quickly called for an “immediate ceasefire” as Pope Francis prayed for peace.
Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan said heavy fighting continued this afternoon along the Karabakh front.
Azerbaijan said it had captured seven of its Armenian-controlled villages, a claim that the Armenian authorities denied.
‘Sacred homeland’
In a televised address to the nation earlier in the day, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev promised victory over the Armenian forces.
“Our cause is just and we will win,” Aliyev said, repeating 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 the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region declared martial law and military mobilization.
“Get ready to defend our holy homeland,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Facebook.
Photo from a brochure from the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, showing an attack on an Armenian facility.
Source: AP / PA Images
Armenia said Azerbaijan attacked civilian settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh, including the main city, Stepanakert.
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.
“There are reports of deaths and injuries among civilians and the military,” said the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Great damage has been inflicted on many homes and civil infrastructure.”
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 as the “Minsk Group,” but the last big push for a peace deal collapsed in 2010.
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A picture posted by the Armenian Defense Ministry shows the Armenian army destroying Azerbaijani tanks.
Source: AP / PA Images
Azerbaijan ally Turkey blamed Yerevan for the outbreak and promised Baku its “full support.”
“We strongly condemn Armenia’s attack on Azerbaijan,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter.
Russia’s Lavrov spoke with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, Moscow said, stressing “the need to stop the fire as soon as possible.”
The two discussed “the Armenian aggression,” said a Turkish diplomatic source.
Pope Francis told the crowds in St. Peter’s Square that he was praying for peace and called for “concrete gestures of goodwill 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.
© – AFP, 2020
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