Heavy fighting is currently taking place on the southern front of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, Arcruns Ovannisyan, a spokesman for the Armenian Ministry of Defense, said on Thursday.
“Heavy and intense fighting is taking place in the south,” the official told social network Facebook.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Twitter urged Armenia to abandon efforts to regain its lost position in Karabakh.
“I openly appealed to the Armenian government and people to stop trying to reclaim the land we have liberated. This will only lead to new casualties, bloodshed,” Aliyev warned on Twitter.
The leader has repeatedly stated in the past that Azerbaijan’s goal is to restore the country’s territorial integrity and that Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh will continue until the Armenian forces leave.
During the fighting, the Azerbaijani army in Nagorno-Karabakh has occupied 44 settlements and a number of strategically important highlands, according to the official Baku.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan admitted on Wednesday that during 18 days of fighting, Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh have been forced to retreat in two directions – south and north.
Nagorno-Karabakh authorities report that since the start of the fighting on September 27, the number of civilian casualties has risen to 31 and the number of soldiers has fallen to 525.
Azerbaijan does not reveal how many soldiers have fallen on its side, but has announced that 43 civilians have died.
Azerbaijani forces are reportedly being assisted by Turkish armed forces officers and Turkish-organized Syrian militants.
Russia has taken the lead in ending the current Karabakh crisis, and trilogues in Moscow on Saturday night with Armenia and Azerbaijan managed to reach an agreement to cease fire from Saturday at 12 noon.
Although there were initially positive signals that the ceasefire was largely being respected, fighting soon resumed.
Russia, the European Union, Iran and the United States have urged the parties to adhere to the ceasefire.
There have been hostile relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia since the 1990s, when there was a war over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian population.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which was part of the Azerbaijani SSR during the Soviet era, has been a “de facto” independent Armenian republic since the early 1990s. Although Azerbaijan has not controlled Nagorno-Karabakh since the collapse of the USSR, it considers the Armenian region to be its territory. Nagorno-Karabakh is also considered by the international community to be part of Azerbaijan, and no country has recognized the region as an independent state.
Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1991. Its secession from Azerbaijan contributed to the outbreak of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. About 35,000 people lost their lives in the war, and more than a million people in both countries were forced to flee their homes.
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