LAST UPDATE | 19 Sep 2023
ARMENIA HAS ACCUSED Azerbaijan of unleashing “large-scale aggression” against the Armenian-populated separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and claimed Baku was attempting “ethnic cleansing” in the region.
Azerbaijani forces launched “anti-terrorist operations” in the disputed region today and demanded the total withdrawal of Armenian forces from the mountainous territory as a precondition for peace.
“Localised anti-terrorist measures have been launched in the region,” Baku’s defence ministry said, adding it was using “high precision weapons on the front line and in depth as part of the operations.”
“On 19 September, Azerbaijan unleashed another large-scale (act of) aggression against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, aiming to complete its policy of ethnic cleansing,” Armenia’s foreign ministry said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region, also referred to as Artsakh by Armenians, has long been a point of tension and hostility between the two neighbouring countries. There have been two wars over the area, one in the late 1980s and early 90s and another in 2020, which has been followed by smaller scale skirmishes since.
While the territory is internationally recognised as belonging to Azerbaijan, the population is made up of mostly ethnic Armenians.
Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh have said Azerbaijani forces are trying to advance into the disputed region and that its forces were “resisting” the push.
“The Azerbaijani Armed Forces are trying to advance into depth of Artsakh,” it said.
“The Defence Forces continue to resist Azerbaijani’s offensive along the entire line of contact.”
25 people, including at least five civilians, have been killed and 80 were wounded by the fighting, according to the separatists who said Azerbaijan is employing artillery, rockets and drones.
“Azerbaijani Armed Forces are using artillery and rocket fire, attack UAVs (drones), combat aviation,” the Armenian separatist army in Karabakh said on social media.
“There are 80 wounded … of which, according to preliminary data, 15 are civilians. Unfortunately, five deaths have been recorded,” an official separatist news portal announced, specifying that women, elderly people and children were among those impacted.
The separatists have also called for ceasefire talks.
“The (Karabakh) side calls the Azerbaijani side to immediately cease the fire and sit at the negotiating table to address the situation,” the breakaway region’s foreign ministry said.
Local journalist Siranush Sargsyan posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) alleging that Azerbijiani forces were shelling civilian areas in the city of Stepanakert.
Azerbaijan is shelling civilian residential areas of #Stepanakert This is a building next to us with no military target in vicinity. pic.twitter.com/EZtJsAEBNg
— Siranush Sargsyan (@SiranushSargsy1) September 19, 2023
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said Azerbaijan started a “ground operation” in the region but that his army was not involved in fighting and the situation on the border between the two countries was “stable”.
“Azerbaijan has begun a ground operation aimed at ethnic cleaning of Karabakh Armenians,” Pashinyan said in a TV address.
“I declare that Armenia is not involved in armed actions and does not have an army in Karabakh,” he said, adding: ”For the moment, the situation is stable along Armenia’s entire border (with Azerbaijan).”
Pashinyan also called on Russia and the UN to get involved. Russia, an ally of Armenia, has a peacekeeping force of roughly 3,000 troops in the region who have been there since the 2020 war ended.
“First of all, Russia must take steps and, secondly, we expect the UN Security Council to also take steps,” Pashinyan said.
In Armenia’s capital, angry protesters clashed with police as they called on Pashinyan to resign.
In a televised address, Pashinyan warned: “We must not allow certain people, certain forces to deal a blow to the Armenian state.
“There are already calls, coming from different places, to stage a coup in Armenia,” he said.
Russia said it was given “minutes” notice before Azerbaijan launched the operation, refuting reports that it was told in advance. Russia has maintained a peacekeeping force of roughly 3,000 troops in the region since the end of the 2020 war.
“Information is being circulated in the media that the Azerbaijani side allegedly warned the Russian peacekeepers ‘in advance’ of today’s ‘anti-terrorist operation’ in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“This does not correspond to reality. The information was communicated to the Russian contingent a few minutes before the outbreak of hostilities,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Moscow urged the parties to the conflict to respect a peace accord and end the “bloodshed”.
“The main thing is to prevent human casualties. We see that there are these kinds of victims. And the main thing is to convince Yerevan and Baku to come to the negotiating table,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh will take clear and unequivocal steps to stop Azerbaijan’s aggression,” Armenia’s foreign ministry said in a statement, citing a ceasefire agreement Moscow brokered between the two sides in 2020.
Azerbaijan said it had informed Russia and Turkey about military activities it was carrying out in the region.
“The command of the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation and the leadership of the Turkish-Russian Monitoring Center were informed about the activities being carried out,” Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said.
EU chief Charles Michel today called on Azerbaijan to stop its military operation in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Devastating news coming from former Nagorno-Karabakh oblast today. Military actions of Azerbaijan must be immediately halted to allow for a genuine dialogue between Baku and Karabakh Armenians,” Michel wrote in a social media post.
France’s foreign minister issued a strongly worded statement labelling the military operation “illegal, unjustifiable, unacceptable.”
“I would like to emphasise that we hold Azerbaijan responsible for the fate of Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Catherine Colonna told journalists on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
France has also called for a meeting of the UN Security Council to address the situation.
The fighting came just hours after Azerbaijan said four police officers and two civilians were killed in mine blasts in Nagorno-Karabakh, with authorities blaming separatists.
The deaths at dawn came after Armenian separatists said they had reached an agreement with Azerbaijani authorities to resume aid deliveries to Karabakh.
Baku’s security services said two civilians had died in the district of Khojavend and four police officers were killed in another mine explosion en route to the site.
Their vehicle hit “a mine laid on a tunnel road under construction by illegal Armenian armed groups,” a statement said.
Azerbaijan said the incident took place “in the zone of temporary deployment of the Russian peacekeeping contingent,” despatched by Moscow in 2020 as part of a ceasefire deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan said the police officers were killed on the road to Azerbaijani-controlled Shusha, recaptured from separatists in 2020.
In the six-week 2020 war, Azerbaijan regained control of key areas of Karabakh, including the culturally revered town of Shusha.
But other parts of the region, including the main city of Stepanakert, remain under the control of Armenian separatists.
Azerbaijan said the road to Shusha was built after it captured pockets of land from Armenia in 2020.
“During the construction of the road, the area along the route was cleared of mines,” Baku said.
Nagorno-Karabakh is heavily mined. Over the last three decades, hundreds of Azerbaijanis have been wounded or killed by landmines laid by Armenian forces.
Azerbaijan said today that more than 300 of its nationals have been wounded or killed by mines since 2020.
Both Azerbaijani and Armenian militaries used them during a bloody conflict in the early 1990s.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said that landmines were the main obstacle impeding the return of displaced people to territories retaken from Armenian separatists in 2020.
With reporting from AFP
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