Armenia, Azerbaijan clash for 2nd day
Fighting over disputed region produces dozens of casualties
YEREVAN, Armenia — Armenian and Azerbaijani forces fought over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh for a second day Monday, with both sides blaming each other for resuming the attacks that reportedly killed and wounded dozens as the decades-old conflict has reignited.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry claimed Armenian forces shelled the town of Tartar, while Armenian officials said the fighting continued overnight and Baku resumed “offensive operations” in the morning.
Azerbaijani military officials told the Interfax news agency that over 550 Armenian troops have been “destroyed (including those wounded)” in a claim that Armenia denied.
According to officials in the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, 58 servicemen on their side have been killed so far. The territory on Sunday also reported two civilian deaths — a woman and her grandchild.
About 200 troops have been wounded, but many were only slightly hurt and have returned to action, the Armenian Defense Ministry said. Azerbaijani authorities said nine civilians were killed and 32 wounded on their side. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Sunday there were
losses among Baku’s forces, too, but he didn’t elaborate.
The heavy fighting broke out Sunday in the region that lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Yerevan government since 1994 at the end of a separatist war.
Azerbaijan said it destroyed two Armenian tanks, and Nagorno-Karabakh’s Defense Ministry reported that Baku “lost 10 armored vehicles in a tank battle.”
The Armenian Defense Ministry said that, while the fighting continued, “all offensives of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces were successfully suppressed, the enemy was thrown back” and suf
fered losses.
Nagorno-Karabakh — a region in the Caucasus Mountains about 1,700 square miles or about the size of the U.S. state of Delaware — is 30 miles from the Armenian border. Soldiers backed by Armenia also occupy some Azerbaijani territory outside the region.
The European Union urged both sides to stop fighting and return to the negotiating table, after similar calls by Iran, Russia, France and the United States.
“We hope and we urge everyone to everything they can in order to prevent an all-out war from breaking out, because this is the last thing the region needs,” European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said in Brussels. “There is no military solution to this conflict.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation “is a cause for concern for Moscow and other countries.”
“We believe that the hostilities should be immediately ended,” Peskov said, adding that the process of resolving the conflict should shift into “a politico-diplomatic” dimension.
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry accused Turkey, which sides with Azerbaijan in the conflict, of supporting “this aggression.”
“Turkish military experts are fighting side by side with Azerbaijan, who are using Turkish weapons, including UAVs and warplanes,” the ministry said. The situation “clearly indicates” that people in Nagorno-Karabakh are fighting against “a Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance,” the statement said.
Both Armenia and Turkey accused each other of recruiting foreign mercenaries.