Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of targetting cities far beyond conflict zone

The fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces continued over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, with Azerbaijan accusing Armenia of targeting the country's cities that are far beyond the conflict zone. Hikmet Hajiyev, aide to Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev, said Yesterday that Armenia targeted large cities Ganja and Mingachevir with missile strikes.

Ganja, home to several hundred thousand residents and the country's second-largest city, is located roughly 100 kilometres away from Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh's capital, and so is Mingachevir.

The clashes erupted on September 27 and have killed dozens, marking the biggest escalation in the decades-old conflict over the region, which lies within Azerbaijan but is controlled by local ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia. As the fighting resumed last morning, Armenian officials accused Azerbaijan of carrying out strikes on Stepanakert and targeting the civilian population



there.

Nagorno-Karabakh was a designated autonomous region within Azerbaijan during the Soviet era. It claimed independence from Azerbaijan in 1991, about three months before the Soviet Union's collapse. A full-scale war that broke out in 1992 killed an estimated 30,000 people.

On Thursday, leaders of Russia, France and the United States - co-chairs of Minsk Group, which was set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1992 to resolve the conflict - issued a joint statement calling for an immediate cease-fire and resuming substantive negotiations ... under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

Armenian officials alleged that Turkey is involved in the conflict and is sending fighters from Syria to the region. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said earlier this week that a cease-fire can be established only if Turkey is removed from the South Caucasus.