Macron denounces the deployment of foreign jihadists in Karabakh

Stepanakert: The heavy artillery bombardment between the Armenian fighters and the Azerbaijani army continued on Thursday, while French President Emmanuel Macron called the deployment of jihadist fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh a “new and dangerous” development.

Russia and the West renewed calls for an end to the fighting that has been raging for several days in the separatist enclave, which has left more than 130 dead.

In a joint call, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Americans Donald Trump and Macron urged the parties to return to negotiations aimed at resolving this long-standing dispute.

Macron announced separately that Syrian jihadists had been transferred through Turkey to join the fighting in Karabakh, describing the matter as a “very dangerous development that changes the situation.”

Both Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev rejected the idea of ​​holding talks.

And in Martoni, a small town 25 kilometers from the front line, heavy shelling forced residents to flee the fierce attacks by taking refuge in basements under their houses.

Artak Illoyan, a 54-year-old construction worker, who took refuge in the basement of his home with an elderly man who lives in his neighborhood, vowed to remain in Karabakh despite battles that had not been seen in the area during years.

“I built this house with my own hands. I will not go anywhere. The matter is settled. I will die here in the last battle,” he told France Press.

Journalists, including an AFP team, were interviewing residents when the attack near Martoni occurred, which wounded a reporter and a photographer for the French newspaper “Le Monde.” None of the AFP journalists were injured.

The two rivals in the Caucasus have entered a bitter conflict over the Karabakh region since the collapse of the Soviet Union when the mainly ethnic Armenian province split from Azerbaijan.

And on Sunday, the fiercest clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces broke out in years over the separatist region, with about 130 people confirmed dead, while fighting continued for the fifth day in a row.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that its forces launched “crushing artillery strikes against the positions of Armenian forces in the occupied territories” overnight.

Azerbaijan denied what Yerevan announced that an Azerbaijani helicopter was shot down and located in Iran. He added that the Armenian fighters “were forced to withdraw from the positions they controlled along the front line.”

The two sides claim they inflicted heavy losses on each other and ignored repeated calls by international leaders to stop the fighting.

It is feared that if a direct war breaks out between Muslim Azerbaijan and predominantly Christian Armenia, two regional powers will be embroiled in the conflict, Russia and Turkey, each of which supports a party to the conflict.

Putin, Macron and Trump called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities” in their statement Thursday, urging the parties to abide by the talks.

“We also call on the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to commit without delay to the resumption of substantive negotiations,” the three leaders said. The United States, France and Russia are part of the Minsk group created by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that has been concerned with finding a solution to the conflict since the 1990s.

Yerevan is part of a Moscow-led military alliance of former Soviet republics and accused Turkey of sending mercenaries from northern Syria to support Azerbaijani forces in the Karabakh conflict.

It also reported earlier this week that a Turkish F-16 jet flying in support of Baku forces had shot down an Armenian Su-25 fighter jet, but Ankara and Baku denied the claim.

Pashinyan reiterated that the mercenaries joined the conflict, noting that Azerbaijan and Turkey are fighting “with the help and intervention of foreign terrorist fighters.”

For his part, Azerbaijan’s ally Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had previously confirmed his country’s full support for Baku, called on Armenian forces to leave Karabakh on Thursday.

“The only way for a sustainable ceasefire in the region depends on the withdrawal of Armenians from every inch of Azerbaijani territory,” Erdogan said.

Armenia recorded the death of 104 soldiers and 8 civilians. For its part, Azerbaijan reported no military casualties, but confirmed the deaths of 19 civilians by Armenian bombardments.

But an AFP journalist in the southern Pelagan region witnessed the funeral of a soldier killed in the clashes.

Karabakh’s declaration of independence from Azerbaijan sparked a war in the early 1990s that claimed the lives of 30,000 people, but no party, not even Armenia, has recognized the region’s independence.

Armenia and Karabakh declared martial law and general military mobilization on Sunday, while Azerbaijan imposed military provisions and curfews in major cities.

Talks aimed at resolving the conflict, which began with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, have stalled significantly since the 1994 ceasefire agreement.