US urges diplomacy as Nagorno-Karabakh fighting rages

Yerevan/Baku, October 27

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh battle as preventing in and across the mountain enclave entered a second month on Tuesday, defying a ceasefire brokered in Washington.

Armenia acknowledged in a single day that Nagorno-Karabakh forces had withdrawn from a strategic city between the enclave and the Iranian border, an obvious navy achieve for Azerbaijan.

Both sides accused one another on Tuesday of putting targets outdoors Nagorno-Karabakh itself in defiance of a truce brokered by Pompeo on the weekend.

Pompeo, in India on Tuesday, spoke individually with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and “pressed the leaders to abide by their commitments to cease hostilities and pursue a diplomatic solution”, the State Department stated.

World powers wish to forestall a wider conflict which may suck in Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia. The battle can also be near pipelines that carry oil and gasoline from Azerbaijan to worldwide markets.

Azerbaijan’s navy positive factors might make a diplomatic resolution tougher: it rejects any resolution that would go away Armenians in charge of an enclave that’s a part of Azerbaijan however populated and managed by ethnic Armenians.

Armenia says it is not going to withdraw from territory it views as a part of its historic homeland and the place the inhabitants wants safety.

The ethnic Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh defence ministry stated its navy had recorded 1,009 deaths for the reason that preventing erupted on September 27. Azerbaijan has not disclosed its navy casualties. Russia has estimated as many as 5,000 folks have been killed.

Armenian Defence Ministry official Artsrun Hovhannisyan stated in a information convention late on Monday that ethnic Armenian forces had given up the settlement of Gubadli south of Nagorno-Karabakh “to avoid unnecessary losses”, however the state of affairs was “not critical”.

Ceasefire damaged

The two nations agreed to a ceasefire on Sunday when their overseas ministers individually met Pompeo in Washington. But the truce, like two earlier ceasefires brokered by Russia, has had little impression on the bottom.

Localised battles had been going down alongside a number of components of the entrance line on Tuesday, the Nagorno-Karabakh defence ministry stated in an announcement. Azerbaijan’s defence ministry described preventing concentrated in three frontline areas.

Shushan Stepanyan, spokeswoman for Armenia’s defence ministry, stated Azerbaijan had used drones to assault frontier posts close to the nation’s southern border with Iran.

Azerbaijan’s defence ministry denied this and stated in an announcement that Armenia had fired mortars within the course of the village of Aghband in Zangilan area, east of Nagorno-Karabakh and inside Azeri territory, additionally close to the Iranian border.

Azerbaijan later reported 4 civilian deaths after shelling within the village of Garayusifli, miles from the battle zone within the Barda area of central Azerbaijan. Stepanyan, the Armenian defence spokeswoman, denied this.

Iran’s overseas ministry stated on Twitter that Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi would journey to a number of nations to debate the disaster. Iranian media stated he would go to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, mentioned Nagorno-Karabakh in a cellphone name. Moscow stated they mentioned an instantaneous ceasefire.

The OSCE Minsk Group, shaped to mediate the battle and led by France, Russia and the United States, is scheduled to fulfill the Armenian and Azeri overseas ministers in Geneva on October 29.

Turkey has demanded a much bigger function within the mediating physique. — Reuters