Armenia attacked several civilian targets this Sunday, including the cities of Tartar, Horadiz and Ganja, the second most important in Azerbaijan. World leaders call for a ceasefire. More than 220 people have died since fighting began in the Nagorno-Karabakh region a week ago.
“Armenia has launched rockets on Ganja. Armenian armed forces deliberately attack the cities of Tartar and Horadiz with heavy artillery and rocket systems. There have also been rocket attacks on cities in the regions of Fuzuli and Jabrail,” said the Azerbaijan Presidency adviser. , Hikmet Hajiyev.
According to the senior Azerbaijan official, “several civilians have been killed or injured as a result of these attacks”.
Hikmet Hajiyev indicated that during the past few days, the Armenia launched more than 10,000 projectiles of various types against densely populated areas, causing serious damage to more than 500 homes.
The senior official stressed the need to distinguish between military and civilians during the confrontation.
“The large-scale Armenian attacks on villages in Azerbaijan without military necessity of any kind are not accidental. Armenia’s systematic attacks are testimony to the fact that it was a plan prepared in advance and included in the Armenian Army’s combat readiness program” , he claimed.
Azerbaijan’s armed forces respond “appropriately” to annihilate enemy fire stations and ensure the safety of the civilian population, said Hikmet Hajiyev.
On the other hand, on Saturday, Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan said that his country faces “perhaps the most decisive moment in its history”, referring to the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, where separatists supported by Yerevan fight Azerbaijani soldiers.
Leaders condemn attacks on civilians and call for ceasefire
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the indiscriminate bombing of populated areas in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, citing “dozens” of civilian casualties on both sides of the line.
“The ICRC strongly condemns the indiscriminate bombings and other alleged illegal attacks carried out by explosive weapons in cities and other populated areas, killing civilians and causing them terrible injuries,” said Martin Schüepp, ICRC regional director for AFP, in a statement quoted by AFP. Eurasia in Geneva.
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, asked his Armenian counterpart, Nikol Pashinian, during a telephone conversation, for an immediate ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh and the start of negotiations with Azerbaijan.
The deputy spokesman for the German executive, Ulrike Demmer, explained in a statement that the conversation between the two leaders about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict took place on Saturday. “Angela Merkel emphasized that all sides must abandon hostilities […] and that a negotiation must begin “, said Ulrike Demmer
Also the Russia expressed its concern “at the increase in the number of casualties among the civilian population” in the conflict between the Armenian separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijani army for the eighth consecutive day.
After speaking on the phone with the head of Armenian diplomacy, Zohrab Mnatsakanian, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, publicly assumed that he had called for “a ceasefire as soon as possible” in that region.
The Russian position in defense of pacification in the Nagorno-Karabakh region joins the words of other world leaders in recent days, such as the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres.
Nagorno-Karabakh at the center of various interests
At the center of the deteriorating relations between Yerevan and Baku is the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the South Caucasus, where there are divergent interests of different powers, in particular Turkey, Russia, Iran and Western countries.
This territory, of Armenian majority, integrated in 1921 in Azerbaijan by the Soviet authorities, unilaterally proclaimed independence in 1991, with the support of Armenia.
Following a war that left 30,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of refugees, a ceasefire was signed in 1994 and accepted mediation by the Minsk Group, formed within the OSCE, but armed skirmishes remained frequent.
In July this year, the two countries were involved in clashes on a smaller scale that claimed about 20 lives. The most significant recent fighting dates back to April 2016, with a balance of 110 dead.
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