Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan and Armenia clash over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region

Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan and Armenia clash over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region

Clashes have broken out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, with at least one Azerbaijani helicopter shot down.

Heavy fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces has broken out in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, with both sides blaming each other for the major flare-up in violence that led to reports of casualties.

Armenia accused neighbouring Azerbaijan of attacking civilian settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh – which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is controlled by Armenian forces – including the main city of Stepanakert. Armenia defence ministry said it's forces downed two Azerbaijani helicopters and three drones in response to an attack it said began at 04:10 GMT on Sunday.

But Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense said it launched an offensive attack "using tanks, artillery missiles, fighter aviation and drones to" suppress Armenia's war activity and ensure population safety ". The ministry said that an Azerbaijan helicopter was airlifted but its crew survived.

"There is a report of the dead and injured among civilians and military soldiers," said a spokesman for Azerbaijan's President Hikmat Hajiyev, a statement said.

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan said Azerbaijan had launched an air and artillery attack.

Azerbaijan said it was responding to shelling along the whole front. Both sides have reported civilian deaths.

The long-running conflict has flared up again in recent months.

Karabakh’s ombudsman Artak Beglaryan said “there are civilian casualties” among the population in the region, where “martial law and total military mobilisation” were also declared. Separately, a spokesman for the Armenian defence ministry said an Armenian woman and child were killed in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The worst fighting in years has stirred up the specter of a new large-scale war between arch-enemy Azerbaijan and Armenia that has been closed for decades in a territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.Ethnic Armenians in the region declared independence during a conflict that broke out in 1991 as the Soviet Union. They seized Karabakh from Baku in the war, killing 30,000 people.

Though a ceasefire was agreed in 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia frequently accuse each other of attacks around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the separate Azerbaijani-Armenian frontier.

Talks to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute have been largely stalled since the ceasefire agreement.

The Minsk Group, which includes France, Russia and the United States, has worked to mediate the dispute, but the last big push for a peace deal collapsed in 2010.

Russia on Sunday called for an immediate ceasefire and the start of talks. “We are calling on the sides to immediately halt fire and begin talks to stabilise the situation,” its foreign ministry said.

Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted: “Armenia has violated the ceasefire by attacking civilian settlements … The international community must immediately say stop to this dangerous provocation.”

In July, heavy clashes along the two countries shared border – hundreds of kilometres from Nagorno-Karabakh – killed at least 17 troops from both sides.