International pressure was mounting on Armenia and Azerbaijan to halt fighting on Sunday after at least 24 people were killed in heavy fighting between the two countries since 2016.
The conflict between the two former Soviet republics that fought the war in the 1990s was the last outbreak of the long-running conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a broken region inside Azerbaijan, but is run by ethnic Armenians.
Seventeen Armenian separatist fighters were killed and more than 100 wounded in the fighting, Karabakh President Arik Harutyunyan said, acknowledging that his army had lost its position. Both sides have also reported the death of a civilian.
“We are fed up with Azerbaijan’s threats. We will fight to the death to solve the problem once and for all,” Art Art Bagdasarya, of Art of the Year, told Yerevan’s AFP news agency.
Separatists in Karabakh said an Armenian woman and a child had been killed, while Baku said an Azerbaijani family of five had been killed in the shelling by Armenian separatists.
Azerbaijan claims to have captured a strategic mountain in Karabakh that helps control transport communications between Yerevan and the enclave.
The decades-old conflict between majority Christian Armenia and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan has sparked a flurry of diplomacy to reduce tensions, fearing that violence could spiral out of control.
“We are one step away from a large-scale war,” Olesya Vartanyan of the International Crisis Group told AFP.
“One of the main reasons for the current growth is the lack of any active international mediation between the parties for weeks,” he added.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that the United States will try to end the violence.
“We are watching it very loudly,” he said at a news briefing. “We have a very good relationship. We’ll see if we can stop it. “
The U.S. State Department issued a statement condemning the violence and calling for an immediate end to hostilities and any rhetoric or other actions that could exacerbate the situation.
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden said in a statement that hostilities could escalate into widespread conflict and urged the Trump administration to push for more observers on the ceasefire line and for Russia to “stop providing weapons to both sides.”
Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, killing 30,000 people and forcing many more to flee their homes.
Despite the end of the ceasefire in 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia have repeatedly accused the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the Azerbaijani-Armenian border of carrying out attacks.
International diplomacy
Armenia said Azerbaijani forces had attacked civilian targets, including Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital Stepanakart, and promised a “proportional response”.
Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashinyan wrote on Twitter, “We are standing by our army to protect the motherland from Azeri invasion.”
Azerbaijan denied statements by the Armenian Defense Ministry that Azerbaijani helicopters and tanks had been destroyed, and accused Armenian forces of carrying out “deliberate and targeted” attacks on the front line.
“We defend our territory, our cause is true!” The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, said in his address to the nation that the words of Joseph Stalin echoed at the beginning of World War II in Russia. “Karabakh is Azerbaijan,” he said.
Both Armenia and Karabakh declared martial law and military mobilization. Azerbaijan imposed military rule and curfews in major cities.
#Nagornocarbakh: No more violations of ceasefire or border events. The war is starting again. Russia, France and the U.S. So, individually and collectively, it’s time to stop.
– Dmitry Trenin (@ Dimitritrenin) September 27, 2020
Turkey said it was in talks with members of the Minsk group, which mediates between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russia, France and the US are co-presidents.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Pashinyan by phone, but no details of the conversation were found, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Aliyev.
Erdogan, pledging to support traditional ally Azerbaijan, said Armenia was “the greatest threat to peace in the region” and called on the world to stand with Azerbaijan in the fight against aggression and cruelty.
Pashinya slammed Turkey, accusing it of “dangerous behavior” and urging the international community to ensure that Turkey does not get involved in the conflict.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “extremely concerned” and called on the parties to stop fighting and return to negotiations.
The European Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Pope Francis have also called on both sides to suspend military action and return to negotiations.
At least 200 people were killed in clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan in April 2016. At least 16 people were killed in clashes in July.
Azerbaijan has promised to retake the region, if necessary, by force, while Armenia has said it will make every effort to defend the region.
