Armenia, Azerbaijan fight persists
BAKU/YEREVAN: Hopes of a humanitarian ceasefire ending fighting over NagornoKarabakh sank yesterday as the death toll mounted and Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of launching new attacks.
Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev said his country’s armed forces would take control of all regions surrounding the breakaway mountain territory if Armenia continued to ‘‘act negatively’’.
Armenia accused Azerbaijan’s ally, Turkey, of not allowing aircraft carrying emergency aid to enter its airspace, despite fears of a humanitarian disaster.
The ceasefire brokered by Russia last Sunday was intended to let the sides swap detainees and bodies of those killed. But it has had little impact on the fighting in and around NagornoKarabakh, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.
Several hundred people have been killed in the deadliest flareup of the decadesold conflict since a 1990s war over NagornoKarabakh killed about 30,000 people.
The ceasefire’s failure to end the fighting has stoked fears about the security of pipelines in Azerbaijan that carry natural gas and oil to international markets, and raised concerns that Turkey or Russia could be drawn into a wider conflict.
Aliyev said the peace process could begin only if Turkey was included in mediation talks, long driven by Russia, France and the
United States.
‘‘Turkey plays a role here and that is Turkey’s right. It has been like that historically,’’ Aliyev told Turkish broadcaster NTV.
He said he did not advocate a military solution, but Azeri forces could take all of NagornoKarabakh’s five major regions if Armenia did not set out a specific timeline to withdraw from the area. About 40 settlements had already ‘‘been liberated from the occupiers’’, Aliyev said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his country was ready to implement ceasefire agreements, but selfdetermination for NagornoKarabakh, which broke away from Azeri control as the Soviet Union collapsed, was a ‘‘red line’’ that could not be crossed.
The Russian and Turkish foreign ministers agreed by phone a peaceful resolution was the only option, Russian news agency RIA reported.
The authorities in NagornoKarabakh said 604 of the territory’s defence personnel had been killed since September 27.
Azerbaijan had on Thursday put its civilian death toll at 43, and four more were killed and three wounded at a funeral in its Terter region when an artillery shell fell on a cemetery, the Azeri prosecutorgeneral’s office said.
The Armenian prosecutorgeneral’s office said Azeri drones had killed two soldiers in the Vardenis region of Armenia on Thursday, raising the Armenian military death toll so far to five. — Reuters