U. S. mediation fails to halt shelling in region

STEPANAKERT, NagornoKarabakh — Rocket and artillery barrages hit residential areas in NagornoKarabakh on Saturday hours after the United States hosted top diplomats from Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on settling their decadeslong conflict over the region.

The heavy shelling forced residents of Stepanakert, the regional capital of NagornoKarabakh, into shelters, as emergency teams rushed to extinguish fires. Local officials said the city was struck with Azerbaijan’s Smerch longrange multiple rocket systems, a devastating Sovietdesigned weapon intended to ravage wide areas with explosives and cluster munitions. NagornoKarabakh authorities said other towns in the region were also targeted by Azerbaijani artillery fire. There was no immediate information about casualties.

Officials in Azerbaijan claimed that the town of Terter and areas in the Gubadli region came under Armenian shelling early Saturday, killing a teenager. They also said 13yearold boy died Saturday of wounds from an earlier shelling of Ganja, Azerbaijan’s secondlargest city.

NagornoKarabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. The current fighting that started Sept. 27 marks the worst escalation in the conflict since the war’s end and has killed hundreds, perhaps even thousands, according to official reports.

After two failed attempts by Russia to broker a truce, the U. S. waded into the conflict on Friday, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hosting the Armenian and Azerbaijan foreign ministers for separate talks. “Both must implement a ceasefire and return to substantive negotiations,” Pompeo said in a tweet after the negotiations. Those words were ignored on the ground.

According to NagornoKarabakh

officials, 963 of their troops have been killed, and 37 civilians also have died. Azerbaijan hasn’t disclosed its military losses, but said 65 civilians were killed in the four weeks of fighting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that according to Moscow’s information, the death toll from the fighting was significantly higher than officially reported by the warring parties, nearing 5,000.

Russia, the United States and France have cochaired the Minsk Group set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to mediate in the conflict, but they haven’t made any progress after nearly three decades.