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Yerevan / Baku – Armenia and Azerbaijan exchanged accusations of violating a new humanitarian truce in the fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region hours after it took effect on Saturday night.
The new peace attempt comes at a time when Russia and France intervened in an attempt to mediate the end of the recent escalation in the disputed region and failed to defuse the fiercest fighting in the South Caucasus region since the decade. 1990.
A week after the announcement of a ceasefire agreement that had not been implemented between Azerbaijan and Armenia, a new “humanitarian truce” between the two parties to the conflict came into force to end the bloody escalation, but the mutual accusations between the two parties to violate the armistice can return the two parties to the starting point.
A spokeswoman for the Armenian Defense Ministry said rockets and artillery shells were fired from Azerbaijan in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Subsequently, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry accused Armenia of not respecting the ceasefire.
And the resumption of fighting three weeks ago resulted in the deaths of hundreds, and the conflict witnessed a further escalation on Saturday after a first failed ceasefire attempt that took place a week ago under the auspices of Moscow.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed, with Russian mediation, to a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, starting on October 10, after two weeks of fierce fighting, which represented the worst outbreak of hostilities in the separatist region in a quarter of a century. .
The announcement of the new truce came after a conversation between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts on Saturday night and their emphasis on “the need for strict adherence” to the agreement. ceasefire agreed in Moscow on Saturday, according to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the humanitarian truce on Saturday night, which occurred “after a French mediation that took place in the last days and hours in coordination with the two co-chairs of the Minsk Group.”
But the two sides immediately accused each other of violating the agreement by carrying out further attacks, attacking residential areas and violating the armistice, with the most intense fighting continuing in the southern Caucasus region since the 1990s.
On Saturday, Azerbaijan vowed to “take revenge” for the deaths of 13 civilians in a night bombing of the city of Ganja, the country’s second largest city, in a new escalation of the conflict.
On Saturday, the bombardment included Ganja, the second most populous city in Azerbaijan, and the Azerbaijani attacks targeted the separatist capital, Stepanakert, and the city of Shusha, whose inhabitants have fled the most since the outbreak of fighting on September 27th.
Dozens of rescuers conducted search operations for survivors, collecting body parts and placing them in designated black bags.
“We will take revenge on the battlefield,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a speech on Saturday. He described his separatist enemies as “dogs” and Armenia that supports them as “fascist.”
Turkey accused Armenia of committing “war crimes”.
For its part, the European Union condemned these attacks and called once again on “all parties to stop attacking civilians.”
On the other hand, the Armenian Defense Ministry denied the accusations of bombing cities in Azerbaijan and accused Baku of continuing to bombard populated areas within Nagorno Karabakh and targeting the capital and Khankendi, the largest city in the region.
