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Armenia and Azerbaijan have announced a new attempt to establish a ceasefire in their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh starting at midnight local time (8 pm GMT).
It comes a week after a Russian-brokered truce wore off immediately after it took hold. The two parties exchange blame for breaching that agreement. On Saturday, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of attacking its second-largest city with a ballistic missile that killed at least 13 civilians and injured 50 others.
The new agreement was announced by the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers after phone calls between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his counterparts. Lavrov strongly urged countries to comply with the Moscow agreement.
Nagorno-Karabakh is located within Azerbaijan, but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since the war ended in 1994. The latest clashes that began on September 27 have involved heavy artillery, rockets and drones, killing to hundreds in the largest escalation of hostilities between the southern Caucasus neighbors in more than a quarter of a century.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, welcomed the agreement and stressed that it must be strictly respected by both parties.
“This ceasefire must be unconditionally and strictly observed by both parties,” the president’s office said in a statement. “France will be very attentive to this and will remain committed so that hostilities cease permanently and credible discussions can begin quickly.”
The Armenian Defense Ministry denied launching the attack, but the Nagorno-Karabakh separatist authorities released a statement listing alleged “legitimate” military installations in the city of Ganja, although they failed to claim responsibility for the attack.
Azerbaijani officials said the Soviet-made Scud missile destroyed or damaged around 20 residential buildings in Ganja overnight, and emergency workers spent hours searching the rubble for victims and survivors.
Scud missiles date back to the 1960s and carry a large load of explosives, but are known for their lack of precision.
In a televised address to the nation, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev denounced the missile attack as a war crime and warned the Armenian leadership that it would face the consequences of the attack.
“Azerbaijan will give its answer and it will do so exclusively on the battlefield,” Aliyev said.
While the Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities have denied targeting civilians, residential areas have been increasingly targeted amid hostilities that have lasted for three weeks.
Azerbaijani authorities said on Saturday that 60 civilians have been killed and 270 injured since September 27, but have revealed no military losses. The separatist authorities said that more than 600 Nagorno-Karabakh soldiers and more than 30 civilians were killed in three weeks of hostilities.
Azerbaijan has insisted that it has the right to reclaim its land by force after the efforts of the so-called Minsk group of international mediators comprising Russia, the United States and France made no progress after nearly three decades. Azerbaijan has actively lobbied for its ally Turkey to take a leading role in future peace talks.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar spoke by phone with his Azerbaijani counterpart, congratulating Azerbaijan for “liberating Fizuli from occupation” and shooting down Armenian planes.
The Azerbaijani military stated on Saturday that it shot down an Armenian Su-25 aircraft, a claim quickly dismissed by the Armenian Defense Ministry.
The Armenian army said it shot down three Azerbaijani drones over the territory of Armenia on Saturday. Azerbaijan denied it.
Drones and rocket systems supplied by Turkey have given the Azerbaijani military an advantage on the battlefield, helping them outperform Armenian forces that rely primarily on outdated weapons from the Soviet era.
