Winds of war in the Caucasus: Armenia and Azerbaijan fight in Nagorno Karabakh. Yerevan blames Turkey

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New winds of war in the Caucasus. Armenia declared martial law and general mobilization after the Azerbaijani army offensive in Nagorno Karabakh against separatist rebels that resulted in several casualties.

Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority region within Azerbaijan that declared its independence in 1991, also announced martial law and mobilized the male population after the fighting. Armenia, which has yet to declare general mobilization, accused Azerbaijan of carrying out an air and artillery strike against Nagorno-Karabakh, while the Baku government said it had responded to the Armenian bombardment.

Victims on both sides

Armenian human rights activists said that two civilians, a woman and a child, were killed in the Azerbaijani bombing. According to Baku, an unknown number of Azerbaijani civilians died and six were injured, while Nagorno-Karabakh reports that ten of its soldiers were killed. Armenian separatists claim to have inflicted “losses” on the enemy and the Armenian Defense Ministry in Yerevan reports that two Azerbaijani military helicopters have been shot down.

A conflict of decades

Russia’s Foreign Ministry, mediator for decades in the conflict between predominantly Christian Armenia and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan, has urged both sides to immediately stop shooting. The two countries have long been at odds over Nagorno-Karabakh, which broke away from Azerbaijan in a conflict that erupted with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although a ceasefire was agreed in 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia often blame each other for attacks around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Azerbaijani-Armenian border.

The conflict has worried Western countries and the region because it could cause instability in the South Caucasus, which serves as a corridor for pipelines that transport oil and gas to world markets.