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    Categories: 2020

Armenia reports fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh’s city of Shushi

TASS, Russia
Nov 8 2020
According to the Defense Ministry Spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan, "there is a chance that tomorrow, the battle for Shushi will end"

YEREVAN, November 8. /TASS/. Clashes between the defense army of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the Azerbaijani armed forces are ongoing in the strategically important city of Shushi, Armenian Defense Ministry Spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan said in an interview with the Armenian state TV.

"Military activity is ongoing currently on the territory of the city of Shushi and its surroundings," he said. According to the spokesman, "there is a chance that tomorrow, the battle for Shushi will end."

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July. Azerbaijan and Armenia have imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict have reported casualties, among them civilians. Hostilities in the region continue despite the previously reached ceasefire agreements.

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs – Russia, France and the United States.


Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS