Azerbaijan claims advances in Karabakh, Armenia vows historic struggle

Reuters

Oct 3 2020

Azerbaijan claims advances in Karabakh, Armenia vows historic struggle

By Nvard Hovhannisyan, Nailia Bagirova

5 Min Read

YEREVAN/BAKU (Reuters) – Armenia said on Saturday it would use “all necessary means” to protect ethnic Armenians from attack by Azerbaijan, which said its forces had captured a string of villages in fighting over the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh: 51 more killed in fighting with Azerbaijan

Ignoring a French attempt to mediate, the opposing sides pounded each other with rockets and missiles for a seventh day in the newest flare-up of a decades-old conflict that threatens to draw in Russia and Turkey.

The death toll rose to at least 230 in the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan that broke away from its control in the 1990s.

Each side said it had destroyed hundreds of the other’s tanks. The Azeri side claimed gains, and President Ilham Aliyev sent congratulations to a military commander on the capture of a Karabakh village.

“Today the Azeri army raised the flag of Azerbaijan in Madagiz. Madagiz is ours,” Aliyev declared on social media. He later announced the capture of seven more villages.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of the Azeri capital Baku in celebration, waving flags and placards reading “Karabakh was and will be ours”.

It was not possible to independently verify the situation on the ground.

Armenian Defence Ministry official Artsrun Hovhannisyan said the situation was changing frequently. “In such a large war such changes are natural. We can take a position, then leave it in an hour,” he told reporters.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told his countrymen in a televised address that fighting all along the front was intense.

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