SEVERAL MILITARY REPORTED DEAD IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT ESCALATION
Russia Today
March 19 2015
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalated
on Thursday leaving several military dead. Different figures were
produced by each side, ranging from at least three, up to 20 people
in the disputed enclave in the South Caucasus.
The defense ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which is an
unrecognized state populated mostly by ethnic Armenians and completely
surrounded by Azeri territories, reported that three of its servicemen
were killed and several others injured in an attack from the Azerbaijan
side on Thursday.
“On Thursday morning a reinforced group of [Azerbaijan’s] special
operation forces attacked the Karabakh positions,” the ministry said
in its statement, adding that the Armenian soldiers serving in that
region repelled the attack and “totally defeated” the military group.
Three Armenian servicemen died in the fight, and four more were
injured, the ministry’s press-service said.
The Azerbaijani side called these reports intentional “disinformation,”
and said that its troops killed and wounded up to 20 Armenian military.
“As a result of military clashes on March 19 on the front line,
Azerbaijan’s armed forces conducted a heavy attack up-front on
the Armenian side, and eliminated and wounded up to 20 Armenian
servicemen,” the Azerbaijani defense ministry said in its statement.
The ministry also said that reports of a sabotage attack from the
Azerbaijani side were not true.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry blamed its opponent for a “provocation,”
which “poses a serious threat to security and stability in the region,”
the ministry’s spokesman Tigran Balayan told journalists on Thursday,
as quoted by Interfax.
Both sides have repeatedly accused each other of trying to reignite
a conflict that broke out in 1988 when the Nagorno-Karabakh region
announced its plans to seek independence from Azerbaijan and become
part of Armenia.
After Armenia and Azerbaijan obtained independence from the Soviet
Union in 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh held a referendum, which approved
the creation of an independent state. Azerbaijan made an attempt to
regain control over the territory and the conflict quickly escalated
into a full-scale war, which saw 30,000 people killed over three years.
Although the sides announced a ceasefire in 1994, there has been no
lasting peace agreement since, with the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
remaining an unrecognized state, with Armenia generally representing
its interests.
In August 2014, relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia deteriorated
into the worst crisis since the beginning of the century, with 13
Azerbaijani soldiers and five Nagorno-Karabakh troops killed in the
escalating confrontation.
The conflicting sides and Russia, which has been playing the role
of key mediator in the process of finding a solution to the dispute,
agreed that the renewed violence in Nagorno-Karabakh should be settled
“in a peaceful way.” The sides then aimed to resolve the conflict
through negotiations “in the near future.”