YEREVAN, October 3. /TASS/. One person was killed and four people wounded in a missile attack by the Azerbaijani armed forces on the city of Stepanakert on Friday, the Armenian government’s information center reported.
Stepanakert is the administrative center of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"According to preliminary data, as a result of the evening bombing of Stepanakert, four people were wounded, one person was killed," the information center said. In addition, two residential buildings were seriously damaged, they added.
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.
On October 1, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia, Donald Trump of the United States and Emmanuel Macron of France in a joint statement called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to end hostilities and to resume talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict without preconditions.
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.