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The fighting, which broke out on Sunday, has once again focused on the unstable situation in the areas around the Caucasus mountain range, which serves as a corridor for the Caspian Sea oil and gas pipelines.
Both sides, which have been in conflict since the time of World War I and fought a war in the early 1990s, have reported casualties. The fighting affects Nagorno-Karabakh, an area no larger than the Hare Valley, which lies within Azerbaijan but is ruled by ethnic Armenians. Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have activated their martial laws and started a mobilization of their male residents, Reuters reports.
Accuse each other
Armenia accuses Azerbaijan of carrying out an attack in Nagorno-Karabakh in the early hours of Sunday, an attack that, according to Nagorno-Karabach, killed 16 people and injured hundreds. Armenia also states that Azerbaijani forces have attacked civilian targets, including the capital Stepanakert, and promises a “proportionate response”.
“We stand firm with our army to defend our homeland from an Azerbaijani invasion,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on Twitter.
Azerbaijan says it has responded to artillery fire from Armenia, which is accused of carrying out deliberate and targeted attacks against the country that killed 5 people from the same family and injured 19 civilians.
“We are defending our territory, our cause is right,” President Ilham Aliyev said in an address to the nation.
Villages taken
Azerbaijan also states that it has captured seven villages in Nagorno-Karabakh. The information was initially denied by Nagorno-Karabakh, who later said that “certain positions” had been lost without giving further details.
Today’s battles are the most violent since April 2016, when conflict last broke out, requiring at least 200 lives.
Major oil and gas corridor
The area around Nagorno-Karabakh, located south of the Caucasus mountain range between the Black and Caspian Seas on the border between Europe and Asia, serves as an important corridor for the Caspian oil and gas pipelines from Azerbaijan to the rest of the world. Armenia warned in July about the security situation in the area after Azerbaijan threatened to attack Armenian nuclear power plants.
