Azerbaijan and Armenia today reported large-scale border clashes that left several Azerbaijani troops dead in the latest round of clashes between the arch rivals.
“At 00:05 am (2005 GMT) on Tuesday, Azerbaijan launched intensive shelling, with artillery and large-calibre firearms, against Armenian military positions in the cities of Goris, Sotk, and Jermuk,” Armenia’s defence ministry said.
Azerbaijan had also used drones, ministry added.
However, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry accused Armenia of “large-scale subversive acts” near the districts of Dashkesan, Kelbajar and Lachin on the border, adding that its army positions “came under fire, including from trench mortars”.
“There are losses among (Azerbaijani) servicemen,” it said, without giving figures.
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for an end to the conflict Monday night. Blinken said the US is “deeply concerned” over the situation, including “reported strikes against settlements and civilian infrastructure” in Armenia.
“There can be no military solution to the conflict,” Blinken said in a statement. “We urge an end to any military hostilities.”
In August, Azerbaijan said it had lost a soldier and the Karabakh army said two of its troops had been killed and more than a dozen injured.
The neighbours fought two wars – in the 1990s and in 2020 – over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated enclave.
Six weeks of fighting in 2020 killed over 6,500 people and ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire _ under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory and Moscow deployed about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.
During EU-supported talks in Brussels in April and May, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed to “advance discussions” on a future peace treaty.
Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.
