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Baku and Yerevan were plunged into a raging conflict a few decades ago over the ethnic Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh, which split from Azerbaijan during a bloody war in the late 1990s, at a cost of around 30,000. lives.
Both sides ignore calls by the international community for an end to hostilities and blame each other for the ongoing clashes. The clashes that resumed on Sunday are the most serious in decades since 1994, when a ceasefire agreement was reached.
On Saturday, the Armenian-backed separatists rejected Azerbaijan’s “fierce attack” and carried out a counterattack, said Shushan Stepanian, a spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry.
“There are also fierce clashes in other directions,” he wrote on the social network Facebook.
Nagorno-Karabakh separatist leader Araik Arutiunian said a “decisive battle” is now being fought with Azerbaijani forces.
“The nation and the homeland were in danger. “It is time for the entire nation to become a powerful army,” he told reporters before going to the battlefield.
Nagorno-Karabakh Army spokesman Suren Sarumian said Azerbaijani forces using aviation, drones and tanks have faced “heroic resistance” from separatist fighters.
At the time, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said its forces had “taken new positions (in Karabakh) and cleared the territory of enemy troops.”
The resurgence of fighting since last Saturday has already killed nearly 200 people, including more than 30 civilians.
There is growing concern that the current clashes will escalate into a multi-front war and that regional powers such as Turkey and Russia may find themselves embroiled in the conflict.
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