Arch foes Armenia and Azerbaijan on Sunday accused each other of initiating deadly clashes that claimed at least 23 lives over a decades-long territorial dispute and threatened to draw in regional powers Russia and Turkey.
The worst clashes since 2016 have raised the specter of a fresh war between the long-standing rivals, which have been locked for decades in a territorial dispute over the Armenia-backed breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh.
Both sides reported casualties including at least one Armenian woman and child. Baku said that an Azerbaijani family of five were killed in shelling launched by Armenian separatists.
A major confrontation between Muslim Azerbaijan and majority Christian Armenia threatened to embroil regional players Moscow and Ankara and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called on global powers to prevent Turkey from getting involved in the conflict again.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned that both nations were on the brink of a full-scale war in the oil rich South Caucasus. Azerbaijan’s “authoritarian regime has once again declared war on the Armenian people,” he said.
France, Germany and the EU swiftly urged an “immediate ceasefire,” while Pope Francis prayed for peace, while Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the military flareup with Pashinyan and called for “an end to hostilities.”
The Russian side expressed serious concern over the resumption of large-scale clashes, the Kremlin said, after Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey blamed Yerevan for the flare-up and promised Baku its full support.”
The Turkish people will support our Azerbaijani brothers on the western flank with all our means as always, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted.
Azerbaijan accused Armenian forces of violating a ceasefire, saying it had launched a counter-offensive to “ensure the safety of the population,” using tanks, artillery missiles, combat aviation and drones.
Azerbaijan imposed martial law and a curfew in large cities and said it had captured from Armenian rebels a strategic mountain that helps control transport communications between Yerevan and the Armenian-held enclave.
In a televised address to the nation earlier Sunday, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev vowed victory over Armenian forces. Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, he said.
Armenia said that Azerbaijan attacked civilian settlements in Nagorny Karabakh including the main city Stepanakert. Ethnic Armenian separatists seized the Nagorny Karabakh region from Azerbaijan in a 1990’s war that claimed 30,000 lives.
Talks to resolve one of the worst conflicts to emerge from the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union have been largely stalled since a 1994 ceasefire agreement.
France, Russia and the USA have mediated peace efforts as the “Minsk Group” but the last big push for a peace deal collapsed in 2010.
Israeli aircraft manufacturer Aeronautics Ltd. was suspected of testing a “suicide drone” against the Armenia military in 2017 at the behest of its client Azerbaijan, in violation of Israeli law.
The Defense Ministry suspended the export licenses of three senior officials from the company in 2019 in response to the incident, but the firm was allowed to again sell the unmanned aerial vehicles to the Azeris.
However, most details of the case were suppressed under a court-issued gag order.
Times of Israel.com / ABC Flash Point Oil News 2020.
This is the place were WW III will start, with the Israeli’s using the region to launch attacks on Iran?
Now it has also fighters jets stationed in Sunny Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Qatar?
This is how WW III kicks off, now the Israeli military is directly involved in the destruction of Muslim nations such as Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen?
Everywhere the world has problems the same fingerprint appears in the dark?