Azeris and Armenians say civilian areas attacked, NATO seeks ceasefire

Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other on Monday of attacking civilian areas on the ninth day of the deadliest fighting in the South Caucasus region for more than 25 years.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg added his voice to calls for an immediate end to the clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountain enclave that belongs to Azerbaijan under international law but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

But prospects for a ceasefire appeared remote after the fighting intensified over the weekend and following uncompromising comments by Azeri President Ilham Aliyev.
In an address to the nation on Sunday, Aliyev said Azeri forces were advancing and retaking lands that had been in the hands of ethnic Armenians since a war in the 1990s.

He said Armenia must set a timetable for withdrawing from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding Azeri territories, and that Azerbaijan would not cease military action until that happened.
“Azerbaijan has one condition, and that is the liberation of its territories,” he said.

Aliyev said in an interview with Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber on Monday that Ankara must be involved in any moves to end the conflict.

Armenian Defence Ministry official Artsrun Hovhannisyan said: “I don’t think that there is any risk for Yerevan (the Armenian capital), but anyway we are in war.”

The fighting has raised international concern about stability in the South Caucasus, where pipelines carry Azeri oil and gas to world markets, and about the possibility other regional powers being dragged in - Azerbaijan is supported by Turkey, and Armenia has a defence pact with Russia.
REUTERS, 05TH 
OCTOBER, 2020