Armenia, Azerbaijan truce breaks down
YEREVAN/ BAKU ( Reuters) – Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other on Sunday of violating a new humanitarian ceasefire in fighting over the mountain enclave of Nagorno- Karabakh hours after it was agreed to.
The truce, agreed to on Saturday, came into force at midnight local time after a weekold Russian- brokered ceasefire failed to halt the worst fighting in the South Caucasus since the 1990s. At least 750 people have been killed since fighting began on September 27.
But more than two hours after the ceasefire deadline, the Aghdam District, adjacent Nagorno- Karabakh, was under Armenian shelling, the Azeri Defense Ministry said. Armenian military units opened fire from large- caliber weapons along the border overnight, it said. Armenia denied the accusation.
The Azeri army had fired twice during the night and used artillery, Armenia said. It accused Baku of rejecting its request to withdraw the wounded soldiers from the battlefield.
“This step... was categorically rejected by Baku,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Baku called the statement misinformation.
The Azeri
Defense
Ministry
said: “The enemy fired at the vicinity of the Jabrail city, as well as the villages of this region... using mortars and artillery.” The Azeri army “took adequate retaliatory measures,” it added.
Azeri military units downed an Armenian Su- 25 warplane, “which was attempting to inflict airstrikes on the positions of the Azeri army in Jabrail region,” the Azeri Defense Ministry said. Yerevan swiftly denied that.
Officials in Nagorno- Karabakh said Azeri forces had launched an attack on the enclave’s military positions, and there were casualties and wounded on both sides.
Nagorno- Karabakh is a mountain territory that is internationally recognized as part of
Azerbaijan but populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.
The original ceasefire was aimed at letting the sides swap detainees and bodies of those killed in the clashes. but it had little impact on the fighting around the enclave.
The new truce was announced on Saturday after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov talked to his Armenian and Azeri counterparts by phone and called on both sides to observe the truce that he mediated a week ago.
Russia, France and the United States belong to the Minsk Group, which has attempted to help resolve the conflict under the umbrella of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.