At least 29 people have been killed’ in the second day of heavy fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan after their conflict erupted in more than a quarter of a century.
Forces from former Soviet
neighbors fired rockets and artillery at each other on Monday as fighting
escalated around the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Any move related to the war
could draw major regional powers, Armenia's defense ally with Russia, and
Azerbaijan backed by Turkey.
"We have not seen
anything like this in the war since the ceasefire in the 1990s," said the
Crisis Group, an independent organization working to prevent wars.
"Fighting is going on
with all parts of the front," said Olesya Vartanyan, a senior analyst with
the South Caucasus Crisis Group.
"If there are large-scale
casualties, this fight will be extremely difficult to overcome and we will
definitely see a full-fledged war in which Turkey or Russia, or both, are
likely to intervene."
Armenia, which has a
Christian-majority population, and Azerbaijan - which is predominantly Muslim -
first clashed with Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1980s.
The breakaway region is within
Azerbaijan but is mostly populated’ by ethnic and ethnic Armenians.
The latest fighting has
revived concerns over stability in the South Caucasus, a transit route for oil
and gas pipelines to world markets.
Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh
said 27 of its soldiers were killed’ in fighting with Azerbaijani forces on
Monday, after 31 soldiers were killed and more than 100 wounded on Sunday.
The Azerbaijani Prosecutor
General's Office said two Azeri civilians were killed’ on Monday, five on
Sunday and 30 were injured.
There is no official word on
Azeri military casualties.
It was not immediately clear
what sparked the fighting, which killed 16 people on both sides in July.
The European Union (EU) has
called on both sides to suspend hostilities and return to the negotiating table
following similar demands from Iran, Russia, France and the United States.
European Commission spokesman
Peter Stano said: "We hope and do everything we can to prevent a war from
being defeated, because that is the last thing in the region.
"There is no military solution to this conflict."
Under international law,
Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized’ as part of Azerbaijan. But the ethnic
Armenians, who make up the majority of the population, reject the Azeri
principle.
They have run their own
affairs with the support of Armenia, since Nagorno-Karabakh seceded from
Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Although a ceasefire was
agreed’ in 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia often accuse each other of carrying out
attacks in the vicinity of Nagorno-Karabakh and in the Algerian-Azerbaijani
border areas.
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