Separatist officials say Azerbaijan has launched the heaviest missile strike in a month of fighting on its largest Armenian city, Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Azerbaijan hit Stepanakert for several
hours, dozens of missiles landed on the city," Karabakh rights ombudsman Artak
Beglaryan told AFP.
"The strike injured civilians, the heaviest
during the recent fighting," he said.
More than 130 civilians have been killed’ and
thousands displaced in fresh clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces
that began last month over decades of conflict over control of the disputed
territory.
Azerbaijan says Armenian missile strikes on the
cities of Ganja and Barda earlier this week killed 26 civilians, including
women and children.
Armenia has denied the attacks.
The Azerbaijani presidency said on Thursday that’
"under the initiative of (President) Ilham Aliyev, the Azerbaijani side
handed over to Armenia the bodies of 30 soldiers killed in the fighting."
"Armenia has failed to show goodwill in this
matter," but thanks to Russian mediation, it has been agreed to "open
a humanitarian corridor" to remove the bodies of Azerbaijani soldiers from
the battlefield.
Confirming the transfer, mediated by Russia and the
Red Cross, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Shushan Stephan added that
the Armenian army was ready to return the bodies of slain Azerbaijani soldiers.
Both sides have accused each other of failing to
honor three separate ceasefire agreements reached this month by Russia, France
and the United States.
Moscow, Paris, and Washington are co-chairs of
the Minsk Group of Arbitrators, which have failed to make lasting progress
since the 1994 ceasefire.
The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, Zoharb
Mnatsakanyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, were scheduled’ to meet with the Minsk Group
co-chairs in Geneva on Thursday.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said Bayramov had
postponed the meeting until Friday and would not meet directly with his
Armenian counterpart.
Nagorno-Karabakh seceded from Baku in a war in
the 1990s that killed 30,000 people.
The mountainous province of Karabakh and seven
Azerbaijani districts have since been controlled’ by Armenian separatists, but
have been recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan's autonomous region.
The latest outbreak, which began last month, has
killed at least 1,252 people on both sides - the deadliest since 1994
ceasefire.
The death toll is thought’ to be much higher,
with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying last week that about 5,000 to
5,000 people had been killed.
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