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- Despite international calls for a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict region, the fighting continues.
- Both sides reported heavy fighting on Saturday.
- According to Armenia, troops from the neighboring country advanced from the north and south “with strong units” in the region.
In turn, the Baku Defense Ministry announced that the city of Terter and several villages on its own territory had been bombed by opposing forces.
No new casualty figures were announced. So far, more than 200 people have been killed in the fighting in the southern Caucasus, according to Armenian sources in Nagorno-Karabakh. However, there was different information on this information. Azerbaijan recently reported 19 civilians killed and 60 injured.
For almost a week, the two warring states have engaged in heavy fighting in the Armenian-controlled area of Azerbaijan. Both parties mutually transfer responsibility for the renewed escalation.
Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-occupied buffer zone (hatched).
SRF
Macron calls for a ceasefire
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said after a phone call with his French colleague Emmanuel Macron that his army had liberated occupied territories. At the same time, he accused the neighboring country of obstructing negotiations to resolve the conflict.
From circles at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Macron was said to have called for a ceasefire again during the conversation. Negotiations under the umbrella of the so-called Minsk Group of the Organization for Cooperation and Development in Europe (OSCE) must be guaranteed, Macron demanded. France, Russia and the United States mediate the decades-long conflict between the two former Soviet republics.
Foreign fighters on duty?
Armenia had previously accused Turkey of relocating thousands of mercenaries from war zones in Syria and Libya to the southern Caucasus. Russia had also spoken of plausible evidence for this.
“This is fake news,” Aliyev said in an interview with the Al-Jazeera television station. Evidence must be presented. There is not a single evidence of foreign fighters in Azerbaijan. Turkey is also not involved in the conflict.
Turkey is on the side of Azerbaijan in the conflict, while Armenia sees Russia as a protective power. The two countries have been fighting for decades over the mountainous region, which is home to some 145,000 people. Armenia controls Nagorno-Karabakh, but according to international law it belongs to the Islamic part of Azerbaijan.
