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Hostilities broke out on Sunday morning (Dimitar Delkov / AFP).
On Monday morning, fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan resumed, despite several international calls for calm, an immediate cessation of hostilities and a return to the negotiating table to peacefully resolve their dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said that fighting with the Azerbaijani forces continued overnight and resumed in the morning, while the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry accused the Armenian forces of shooting at the city of Tartar.
And both parties to the conflict declared civilian and military casualties. A spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry said its forces “killed about 200 Azeri soldiers and destroyed 30 enemy artillery bars and 20 drones,” while 16 members of its forces were killed and more than 100 wounded.
The Azerbaijani Prosecutor’s Office stated that five members of a family were killed in the shelling by Armenian forces.
The clashes, which Azerbaijan and Armenia accuse of being responsible for initiating them, are the fiercest among them since 2016 in Nagorno Karabakh, which is within Azerbaijani lands but where the majority of Armenians live, renewing concern about stability in the South Caucasus region, a corridor of pipelines that carry oil and gas. To global markets.
In a related context, the two parties to the conflict published videos and photos showing aspects of the clashes that broke out yesterday morning in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
For its part, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry released video clips that also show the destruction of Armenian military vehicles on the border between the two countries.
Call to calm down
International calls for an end to the fighting and warnings about intensifying fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia continued, as United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday night called on the two sides to stop fighting each other immediately and return to “meaningful negotiations without preconditions.”
A statement issued by Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General, said Guterres “strongly urged the two sides to stop the fighting immediately, defuse tensions and return to meaningful negotiations without delay.”
“The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about the resumption of hostilities along the line of contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, condemns the use of force and deplores the loss of life and among civilians,” said the release.
He revealed Guterres’ intention to “speak with both the Azerbaijani president and the Armenian prime minister,” without specifying a date for that.
He expressed “full support (by the United Nations) for the important role played by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and urged the two sides to work closely with them for a urgent resumption of dialogue without prior conditions, “according to the statement.
In addition, the US State Department called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop the fighting immediately. The ministry said in a statement that the major military operation, which caused casualties on the front line, is cause for concern.
The US State Department offered its condolences to the families of those killed in the clashes and strongly condemned the escalation of violence.
He noted that Deputy Foreign Minister Stephen Begun had held talks with the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia after the clashes.
Washington also asked the parties to use the existing communication channels between the two countries to avoid a further escalation of tension in the region, highlighting the need to avoid “useless” speeches and actions that increase tension in the field.
The State Department considered that the interference of external parties in the escalation of violence will not contribute to solving the situation, but to intensify regional tension, and called for the resumption of basic negotiations working with the co-chairs of the Minsk Group as soon as possible, expressing its determination to help the parties find a peaceful and sustainable solution.
Iran also entered the crisis line through the expression of its Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, of Tehran’s willingness to mediate the talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, to find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis.
Zarif called in a tweet on his Twitter account on Sunday to end the hostility between the two countries.
Iran is closely following the alarming violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. We ask for an immediate cessation of hostilities and we urge dialogue to resolve differences.
Our neighbors are our priority and we are willing to provide good offices to enable conversations.
Our region needs peace now.
– Javad Zarif (@JZarif) September 27, 2020
(Agencies of The New Arab)
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