Cease- fire pushed in disputed area
Armenia says it’s open to European plan to stop fighting with Azerbaijan over separatist region.
YEREVAN, Armenia — Officials in Armenia said Friday that their country is ready to discuss a cease- fire in the separatist region of Nagorno- Karabakh, where six days of heavy fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have killed dozens of people and wounded scores of others.
This week’s fighting is the biggest escalation in years in the decades- long dispute over the region, which lies within Azerbaijan but is controlled by local ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia. It has prompted calls for a cease- f ire from all around the globe.
On Thursday, leaders of Russia, France and the United States — co- chairs of the so- called Minsk Group, which was set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1992 to resolve the conflict — issued a joint statement calling for “immediate cessation of hostilities” and “resuming substantive negotiations ... under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group cochairs.”
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that the country stands “ready to engage” with the co- chairs of the Minsk Group “to reestablish a cease- f ire regime based on the 1994- 1995 agreements.”
“Armenia remains committed to the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conf lict,” the statement read.
The deadly clashes in the region resumed Friday, with Armenian military officials accusing Azerbaijan of carrying out strikes on Nagorno- Karabakh’s capital, Stepanakert, and Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry accusing Armenian forces of shelling the Agdam region.
The region’s officials said more than 150 servicemen on their side have been killed so far. Azerbaijan has not provided details on its military casualties, but said 19 civilians have been killed and 55 have been wounded.
Several journalists were wounded in shelling of the town of Matruni on Thursday. Two of them were French citizens working for the newspaper Le Monde.
Reporter Allan Kaval and photographer Rafael Yaghobzadeh were taken to the Stepanakert hospital and operated on there, and were being evacuated Friday morning to Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. The two will be then taken to Paris, Le Monde reported.
In an article published Friday, Le Monde said the pair had traveled to Matruni on Thursday morning to see “for themselves the extent of the damage” from this week’s f ighting. They were with several French, Armenian and other journalists when the town was attacked.
The report quotes regional human rights ombudsman Artak Beglaryan as saying four civilians were killed and 11 other people wounded in the shelling.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked for decades in a conf lict over Nagorno- Karabakh, where a separatist war was fought in the early 1990s, ending in 1994 — three years after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The 1,700- square- mile enclave in the Caucasus Mountains, roughly the size of Delaware, lies 30 miles from the Armenian border.
Azerbaijan’s president said Armenia’s withdrawal from Nagorno- Karabakh was the sole condition to end the f ighting. Armenian officials allege that Turkey is assisting Azerbaijani forces by sending f ighters from Syria to the region and deploying F- 16 fighter jets.
Turkey has publicly supported Azerbaijan in the conf lict and said it would provide assistance if requested, but denied sending in mercenaries or weapons.