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This ceasefire was the second since the outbreak of the last fighting on October 27. More than 700 people have already died in the latest clashes. On Saturday, 13 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in a rocket attack in Geneva, the second largest city in Azerbaijan.
Armenian troops on Saturday accused Azerbaijani forces of carrying out artillery and missile strikes last night, in addition to firing with large-caliber machine guns.
Early in the morning, “the enemy organized an attack [konflikto zonos] in the southern section, “there are deaths and injuries on both sides,” said Shushan Stepanian, a spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, for its part, stated that the Armenian forces, despite the ceasefire, continued to fire with artillery and mortar cannons and that the attacks were carried out in various directions in the morning. The ministry also accused Armenia of firing from Azerbaijani army “high-caliber weapons” positions north of Nagorno-Karabakh, on the border between the two countries. The Yerevan army rejected these statements.
The international community considers Nagorno-Karabakh to be part of Azerbaijan, but this region, with a largely Armenian population, was separated during a bloody war in the early 1990s. Since the ceasefire was declared in 1994, the region it has been controlled by Armenian separatist forces.
The resumption of fighting is of concern to the international community, as oil-rich Azerbaijan now has modern weaponry and Turkey strongly supports it. Yerevan claims that Turkey is sending loyal fighters from Syria to the Ankara region to assist Azerbaijani forces. Ankara denies such accusations.
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