The Ministry of Defense of the unrecognized Karabakh Republic announced on Wednesday morning that Azerbaijani forces had resumed shelling from rocket launchers and cannons. “We are taking measures to suppress enemy activity,” the ministry said, according to Interfax.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense, on the other hand, claims that during the night on Wednesday, Azerbaijani forces repelled attacking Armenian troops on a number of sections of the front and destroyed several tactical missiles allegedly ready to be fired in the border area of Armenia. Baku claims that Armenian missiles were aimed at civilian areas in Azerbaijan.
Yerevan called Baku’s claim unfounded and, in response to the destruction of the facility, announced that it now reserved the right to attack any military object or army movement in Azerbaijan. Yerevan also claims that Armenian troops have not yet fired “a single missile at Azerbaijan” from Armenian territory.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has accused Armenia of trying to attack Azerbaijani gas and oil pipelines. “If Armenia tries to control them, I can say that the result will be terrible for them,” he said.
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Russia calls for a ceasefire and offers observers
In telephone conversations with his counterparts in Baku and Yerevan, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu called on the opposing parties to abide by the ceasefire agreed on Saturday in Moscow. However, this Russian attempt to mediate a ceasefire failed, according to the AP, due to the uncompromising attitudes of both parties, which again accused each other of new attacks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov offered to deploy Russian observers on the front line. “We would consider it absolutely right if our military observers were there, but the parties will have the final say (of the conflict). Of course, we assume that both Yerevan and Baku will take into account our allied relations, “he said on Russian radio.
He stressed that “soldiers” should meet immediately to agree on a ceasefire mechanism that “no one has yet begun to assess”, even though it is “the key to a lasting ceasefire.” In an interview with Reuters, Lavrov also expressed disagreement with Turkey’s position, which repeated Baku several times, namely that the conflict could be resolved militarily.
The worst escalation since the 1990s
The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute – an enclave in southwestern Azerbaijan with a predominantly Armenian population – has been going on between Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades. Armed conflict broke out in 1988 during the Soviet era. Nagorno-Karabakh, with the support of Armenia, broke away from Azerbaijan in a bloody war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees. Currently, Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent Lachin Corridor are under military control of Armenia. Azerbaijan considers this territory to be occupied.
Clashes between the opposing parties are common, but the current fighting, which broke out on September 27, is described as the heaviest since the 1994 ceasefire and claimed hundreds of lives.
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