Cities Under Fire As Fighting between Armenia, Azerbaijan Intensifies (+Video)


Cities Under Fire As Fighting between Armenia, Azerbaijan Intensifies (+Video)

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Armenian and Azerbaijani forces exchanged heavy rocket and artillery fire as fighting intensified over Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday, with the breakaway region's capital and Azerbaijan's second-largest city hit.

Armenia said that Nagorno-Karabakh's main city Stepanakert, which has been under shelling since Friday, was hit again on Sunday and AFP journalists said there were regular explosions and clouds of black smoke rising in parts of the city.

Azerbaijan's defence ministry said meanwhile that Armenian forces had shelled Ganja, a city of more than 330,000 in western Azerbaijan, with footage showing buildings in ruins.

On Sunday night, Hikmet Hajiyev, an adviser to President Ilham Aliyev, wrote on Twitter that Armenians launched "missile attacks against Azerbaijani civilians and civilian infrastructure" in the industrial city of Mingechavir and the Absheron district, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from capital Baku.

Stepping up its bellicose rhetoric, Karabakh's presidency threatened to "expand subsequent (military) actions to the entire territory of Azerbaijan".

Each side accused the other of targeting civilian areas, as the conflict widened a week after heavy fighting broke out in the decades-old dispute over the ethnic-Armenian region.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have resisted international calls for a ceasefire and clashes have intensified in recent days, with both sides claiming victories on the front and saying they are inflicting heavy losses.

In a fiery address to the nation, Azerbaijani President Aliyev set conditions for a halt to the fighting that would be near impossible for Armenia to accept.

He said that Armenian forces "must leave our territories, not in words but in deeds," provide a timetable for a full withdrawal, and recognise the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Yerevan rejected Aliyev's demands.

"Conditionality is not acceptable, (Aliyev) must renounce the use of force and engage constructively in negotiations without imposing maximalist positions," Armenian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Anna Nagdalyan, told AFP.

Armenia's foreign ministry said Stepanakert and other towns had been hit, accusing Azerbaijani forces of "the deliberate targeting of the civilian population".

There were reports of dead and wounded civilians in Stepanakert and the historic town of Shusha.

Azerbaijan said Ganja was under shell fire, including from areas outside of Karabakh in Armenian territory, with at least one civilian killed.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Sunday condemned the reports of "indiscriminate shelling and other alleged unlawful attacks using explosive weaponry in cities, towns and other populated areas".

Russia, the United States and France -- who co-chair a mediation group that has failed to find a political resolution to the conflict -- have called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed concern over "the increase of casualties" among civilians in a call with his Armenian counterpart Sunday.

Meanwhile, more videos show the clashes between the either sides as Azeri forces come under fire from the Armenian military and the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, being bombarded by Azerbaijani army.

 

Karabakh's declaration of independence from Azerbaijan during the collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives.

Talks to resolve the conflict have made little progress since a 1994 ceasefire agreement.

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