Baku/Yerevan– Armenia and Azerbaijan vowed to keep fighting and rejected international calls for negotiations on Wednesday as clashes over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region raged for a fourth day.
In the breakaway province’s capital Stepanakert, two explosions were heard around midnight as sirens sounded. Residents said that the city had been attacked by drones.
Streets were dark with public lighting shut off, although some shops were open in the city, which local authorities said that came under fire when fresh violence erupted on Sunday.
Moscow said that Russian president Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron had called for a ‘complete’ halt to fighting in Karabakh and said that they were ready to intensify diplomatic efforts to help solve the conflict.
‘Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron called on the warring sides to halt fire completely and as soon as possible, de-escalate tensions and show maximum restraint,’ the Kremlin said.
In a telephone call, the two leaders expressed ‘readiness’ to see a statement made on behalf of the co-chairs of the Minsk Group — Russia, France and the United States— that would call for an ‘immediate’ end to fighting and start of talks, it added.
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces were engaged in the heaviest fighting in years over Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian province that broke away from Azerbaijan in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The confirmed death toll surpassed 100 people including civilians on Wednesday, with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy losses on the other.
Baku and Yerevan had ignored mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, sparking fears the conflict could escalate into all-out war and draw in regional powers like Turkey and Russia.
‘We need to prepare for a long-term war,’ Karabakh separatist leader Arayik Harutyunyan said on Wednesday.
Moscow, which had a military pact with Armenia but also good ties with Azerbaijan, had repeatedly called for an end to the fighting and on Wednesday offered to host negotiations.
In separate phone conversations with his counterparts from both ex-Soviet countries, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov reaffirmed Moscow’s ‘readiness’ to organise a meeting.
But neither leader showed signs of being ready for talks.
Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev promised his military would keep fighting until Armenian troops withdraw fully from Karabakh.
If ‘the Armenian government fulfils the demand, fighting and bloodshed will end, and peace will be established in the region,’ he said while visiting wounded soldiers.
Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan said that it was not ‘very appropriate’ to speak of negotiations ‘at a time of intensive hostilities’.
In the Armenian capital Yerevan, dozens of men gathered outside a recruitment office to join the fight.
‘We must act to defend our homeland against the aggressor,’ said Kamo, a 32-year-old factory worker, adding,‘This is our land. We will die before we abandon it.’
There had been no let-up in the fighting since the weekend, with both sides reporting new civilian casualties on Wednesday.
Armenia had recorded 104 military deaths and 23 civilians killed.
Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said that its forces had killed 2,300 Karabakh separatist troops and ‘destroyed 130 tanks, 200 artillery units, 25 anti-aircraft units, five ammunition depots, 50 anti-tank units, 55 military vehicles’.
Armenia claimed that Azerbaijan had lost 130 troops while another 200 were wounded.
‘Armenian armed forces destroyed 29 tanks and armoured vehicles,’ a defence ministry spokesman said.
Karabakh’s defence ministry, for its part, said that Azerbaijani forces ‘continued artillery shelling’ along the frontline.
The two sides had accused each other of targeting civilian areas, including some away from Karabakh.
Yerevan claimed that Turkey, a longstanding ally of Azerbaijan, was providing direct military support for Baku.
It said on Tuesday that a Turkish F-16 flying in support of Baku’s forces had downed an Armenian SU-25 warplane, but Ankara and Baku denied the claim.
The Karabakh separatist leader reiterated claims Turkey was involved.
‘The real enemy is Turkey,’ Harutyunyan said.
There had been reports of Turkey sending fighters from Syria, where Ankara was allied with some rebel groups, to join the Azerbaijani side.
Azerbaijan for its part also claimed Armenia was deploying foreign fighters.
‘Mercenaries from Middle Eastern countries are fighting against us alongside Armenian forces,’ Aliyev’s foreign policy adviser, Hikmet Khadjiyev, told AFP.
Russia’s foreign ministry said that ‘fighters of illegal armed groups including from Syria and Libya’ were being deployed to the conflict zone.
It said that it was ‘deeply concerned’ but did not say who was responsible or lay any blame.
‘We are definitely very close to seeing a large-scale war, possibly even on a regional scale,’ said Olesya Vartanyan of the International Crisis Group.
Karabakh’s declaration of independence from Azerbaijan sparked a war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives, but it was still not recognised as independent by any country, including Armenia.
Talks to resolve the conflict largely stalled since a 1994 ceasefire agreement.
Armenia vs Azerbaijan conflict: the dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region explained as violence continues
Fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in the hotly disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region shows no signs of abating.
Azerbaijani president has vowed to fight on, stating: “We only have one condition: Armenian armed forces must unconditionally, fully, and immediately leave our lands.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, has voiced concerns at the “extremely warlike messages” coming from Azerbaijan ally Turkey.
Though internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan, the region is controlled by ethnic Armenians and is regarded as one of Europe’s frozen conflicts.
Nearly 100 people have died in three days of fighting including civilians.
This is the latest in a long line of conflicts which have plagued the disputed region, dating back to a bloody war in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The last time fighting was this intense was in 2016 when over 200 were killed in clashes.
There are fears that the conflict could destabilise the region with Azerbaijan backed by Turkey and Russia a close ally of Armenia, though Russia have called for an immediate ceasefire.
Why are the two sides in conflict?
Both modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan became a part of the Soviet Union in the 1920s, and while Nagorno-Karabakh was an Armenia controlled region, the Soviet Union handed powers to Azerbaijan.
Over the following decades, Armenians in the region consistently made calls for the mountainous area to be returned to Armenian control.
This came to a head in the 1980s when the Soviet Union began to collapse and politicians in the region voted to join Armenia.
A violent conflict ensued when both declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1988, with tens of thousands of casualties recorded and hundreds of thousands displaced.
A ceasefire between the two countries was brokered by Russia in 1994, with Azerbaijan retaining control of the region.
Since then Nagorno-Karabakh has largely been governed by Armenian separatists who declared the region a republic.
A peace treaty has never been signed by the two countries and tension has flared up on several occasions in the past couple of decades.
Why did the most recent fighting flare up?
Both sides disagree on how fighting in the region flared up.
On Sunday morning (27 September), Armenia declared martial law and mobilised its forces, claiming Azerbaijan had launched a military operation inside the disputed region.
Azerbaijan said it only did so after Armenians shelled the area.
Azerbaijan claims to have taken over territory in the region, though this is disputed by Armenia.
In an escalation of the conflict Armenia have claimed that Turkey shot down one of their Soviet-made SU-25 with an F-15 fighter jet.
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