At least 39 killed as Karabakh fighting enters second day
YEREVAN/BAKU: Armenian separatists in the breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh
said Monday 15 more of its fighters have been killed in a flare-up of a
territorial dispute, bringing the total death toll to 39 as the
fighting entered a second day.
World leaders have urged a halt to the fighting between Azerbaijan and the Armenian rebels after clashes erupted Sunday raising the spectre of an all-out conflict that could draw in regional powers Russia and Turkey.
Ex-Soviet
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked since the early 1990s in a
territorial dispute over the Armenia-backed secessionist enclave, with
deadly fighting flaring up earlier this year and in 2016.
The defence ministry in Karabakh
announced a total military death toll of 32 Monday. Seven civilian
fatalities were reported earlier including an Azerbaijani family of five
and one woman and a child on the Armenian side.
The Armenian
defence ministry said heavy fighting continued overnight and Monday
morning along the frontline and claimed it had won back positions taken
Sunday by Azerbaijani forces.
But Baku claimed further advances.
Azerbaijani
forces "are striking enemy positions using rocket-artillery and
aviation... and have taken several strategic positions around the
village of Talysh," the defence ministry said.
"The enemy is retreating," it added.
Armenian
military officials said Azerbaijani forces were continuing to attack
rebel positions using heavy artillery, while Azerbaijan's defence
ministry accused separatist forces of shelling civilian targets in the
town of Terter.
Baku claimed to have killed 550 separatist troops, a report denied by Armenia.
The clashes erupted Sunday morning with both sides accusing each other of initiating hostilities.
Fighting
between Muslim Azerbaijan and majority-Christian Armenia threatened to
embroil regional players Russia, which is in a military alliance with
Yerevan, and Turkey, which backs Baku.
Armenia accused Turkey of meddling in the conflict and sending mercenaries to the battlefield.
France, Germany, Italy, the United States, the European Union and Russia have urged a ceasefire.
Armenia
and Karabakh declared martial law and military mobilisation Sunday,
while Azerbaijan imposed military rule and a curfew in large cities.
Ethnic Armenian separatists seized the Nagorny Karabakh region from Baku in a 1990s war that claimed 30,000 lives.
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