Armenia and Azerbaijan exchanged accusations of violating a humanitarian truce that was reached 3 days ago to end the fighting in the Nargoni Karabakh region, this comes amid fears of a humanitarian crisis, and despite international calls to return to implement the ceasefire agreement.
This comes while the Prime Minister of Armenia said that the two countries should make concessions in any talks on reaching a settlement over the disputed territory.
In statements to Reuters, he considered that the Turkish foreign minister was undermining the ceasefire agreement by inciting Azerbaijan to continue fighting.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense said that it is committed to the ceasefire agreement, and that it is preventing Armenian attacks targeting its positions.
It indicated that the Armenian army violated the ceasefire and bombed Tartar, Aghdam, Goran Boy and Agabidi last night, considering that the Armenian forces are committing horrible violations of the humanitarian truce.
"The Azerbaijani forces do not violate the ceasefire, for humanitarian reasons," Defense Ministry spokesman Vajiv Dargali said.
Armenian forces on one of the burning battlefronts (European)
Scratch
Al-Jazeera correspondent from Tatar Bagh Amer Lafi said that the situation has returned to point zero, as dozens of shells fell on the Tartar area, amid an intense exchange of fire.
Lavi indicated that the situation on the battle fronts is volatile, noting that the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense confirmed its control over the city of Hadrot, and broadcast pictures from inside the town.
He stated that the Azerbaijani military sources said that this region had been subjected to intense attacks by the Armenian army, confirming that it had repelled those attacks and that many soldiers were caught in an ambush.
On the other hand, the Armenian military forces denied this story, confirming that the battles are still taking place, according to what was reported by the Al-Jazeera correspondent in the city of Goris in the vicinity of Karabakh Amin Dargami.
According to Armenian military sources, the Azerbaijani army renewed its shelling this morning on the southeastern axis of the disputed region.
It added that its forces repelled the attacks of the Azerbaijani forces on the northeastern axis of the region last night, and this comes while the authorities of the Karabakh region said that the death toll rose to 31.
Under international law, the Nagorno Karabakh region is part of Azerbaijan (Reuters)
Escalation and tension
This escalation in the fighting is the worst since the war between 1991 and 1994 over the region, which killed about 30 thousand people.
Tension reigns in the Karabakh region, amid fears of a large-scale war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the South Caucasus, where Ankara and Moscow compete.
Russia and Iran offered mediation between Yerevan and Baku to settle the dispute over the region.
Under international law, the Nagorno Karabakh region is part of Azerbaijan, but the Armenians - who make up the vast majority of its population - reject Baku rule.
The region has been running its own affairs with the support of Armenia since it split from Azerbaijan during a conflict that erupted when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Political calls
Politically, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu renewed his country's support for all decisions taken by Azerbaijan regarding the conflict in Karabakh, whether during negotiations or in the war field.
During a press conference with his Swedish counterpart in Ankara, Cavusoglu called on the international community not to align itself with Armenia.
For her part, Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh expressed her concern about the violation of the ceasefire in Karabakh, and stressed that the solution to the conflict in the region is political and not military.
For his part, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said that any decision taken to combat what he describes as terrorism against the background of the conflict in Karabakh must be with the participation of all concerned countries.
Rabiei added that the presence of terrorism in the region will not be in the interest of any party, and that there are mutual accusations between Azerbaijan and Armenia in this regard.
In Tbilisi, the Georgian Foreign Ministry denied that it had allowed its lands or airspace to be used to cross arms shipments from foreign countries to Armenia or Azerbaijan.
In a statement, the Georgian Foreign Ministry said that the authorities had closed their borders and airspace to the transfer of military equipment and weapons to the two parties to the conflict in Karabakh since the outbreak of the fighting.
Georgia confirmed that it would punish any party found in breach of the ban on the passage of arms through its territory or airspace.
The conflict in Karabakh caused material and human damage (Reuters)
The humanitarian situation
In a context related to the humanitarian situation, the International Committee of the Red Cross called for full compliance with the agreement to stop the fighting in Karabakh to allow humanitarian aid access, considering that hundreds of thousands of people were affected by the conflict.
"Today, after two weeks of violent battles that unfortunately are still intensifying (...) we see that there are hundreds of thousands of people affected in the region," Martin Schweb, director of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Eurasia region, said in a statement.
He pointed out that talks are still ongoing in order to reach an exchange of bodies and prisoners between the two parties, which is one of the goals of the truce that was not implemented.
Since the start of the fighting on 27 September, the two sides have exchanged responsibility for the hostilities, which resulted in about 600 deaths, including 67 civilians, according to a partial census.
Azerbaijan did not announce any deaths among its forces.
For the fourth consecutive day, and despite calls from Moscow and Western countries, the ceasefire - negotiated in Russia and was supposed to come into force since Saturday - remained a dead letter.