Armenia on Friday accused Azerbaijani forces of shelling the main city in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and said that it is ready to discuss a ceasefire as heavy fighting raged for a sixth day.
After intermittent shelling during the day, Stepanakert, the main city in Karabakh, came under heavy bombardment in the evening with local residents hiding in shelters and some fleeing the city, an Agence France-Presse team reported.
A separatist official, Grigory Martyrosyan, told journalists that “public buildings, houses and infrastructure were damaged,” but the city would not be evacuated.
Baku and Yerevan have for decades been locked in a simmering conflict over the ethnic Armenian province that broke away from Azerbaijan in a bitterly fought war in the 1990s.
New fighting that erupted on Sunday has been the heaviest in decades and has claimed nearly 200 lives, including more than 30 civilians.
On Thursday, the leaders of Russia, France and the US — cochairs of the Minsk Group, which was set up by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 1992 to resolve the conflict — issued a joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire and “resuming substantive negotiations ... under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group cochairs.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has accused NATO member Turkey — which backs Azerbaijan — of sending in militants from Syria, which Ankara and Baku deny.
A British-based monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported at least 28 Syrian rebel fighters had been killed in clashes, saying that there were more than 850 such combatants.
International calls for the neighbors to halt clashes and begin talks have intensified as fears grow that the fighting could expand into a multi-front war sucking in regional powers Turkey and Russia.
Armenia said Azerbaijani forces had wounded “many” people in Stepanakert, but some locals said that they were not afraid.
“There is no fear. We have our pride,” said Arkady, a 66-year-old resident. “There will be victims. A war is a war.”
Separatist authorities said that 10 emergency response workers had been injured in strikes.
Armen Muradyan, a former health minister volunteering as a doctor, said that shrapnel wounds were widespread among civilians, “showing indiscriminate use of military force.”
The separatist government said that Azerbaijani forces had destroyed a bridge linking Armenia to Karabakh and vowed a counterstrike.
Azerbaijan in turn accused Armenian forces of shelling its territory, including the town of Terter.
“On Friday, more than 2,000 artillery shells were fired” at Terter, said Hikmet Hajiyev, an adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. “This is a war crime.”
Armenian Ministry of Defense spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan said that 540 Azerbaijani troops had been killed in the past 24 hours.
Civilians were “caught in the crossfire” of the violence, the International Committee of the Red Cross said, adding that hundreds of homes as well as schools and hospitals had been destroyed.
Yerevan expressed its readiness to work with international mediators to halt the fighting.
Armenia “stands ready to engage” with France, Russia, and the US “to re-establish a ceasefire regime,” the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Although it said that talks could not begin unless clashes are halted.
Azerbaijan said that Armenia must first withdraw its troops, accusing it of “fresh attempted aggression.”
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