Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced the control of his country's forces on 13 villages belonging to the city of Gabriel, in the south of the disputed Karabakh region with Armenia, and the two sides exchanged accusations of violating the humanitarian truce that came into effect the day before yesterday, Saturday, and escalating the bombing in the region.
The Al-Jazeera correspondent in Karabakh said that the fighting resumed in the region a day after the declaration of the humanitarian armistice between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was mediated by Russia in order to stop the worst fighting in the South Caucasus region since the nineties of the last century.
The renewed conflict between Baku and Yerevan since 27 September has claimed the lives of more than a thousand people, most of them military personnel.
Mahmoud Al-Zeebq, a correspondent in the city of Goris, in the vicinity of Karabakh, added that the Armenian Ministry of Defense denied accusations by the Azerbaijani authorities of bombing the Azeri oil pipelines, adding that fierce battles are taking place on the southern front of the region.
The correspondent said that shortly after the truce took effect, which came into effect a day and a half ago, violations were recorded by bombing several areas of the region.
Reciprocal accusations
Hikmat Hajiyev, assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, said that Armenia violated the humanitarian armistice and bombed several Azerbaijani cities, and the Ministry of Defense accused Armenia of seeking to increase tension on the battle fronts, and said that it repelled several Armenian attacks on Azeri towns.
The Azerbaijani army stated, in a statement, that Armenia fired at its positions outside the areas of clashes in Karabakh.
On the other hand, the Armenian Ministry of Defense accused Azerbaijan of violating the armistice last night, but affirmed its commitment to the truce, under the pretext of guaranteeing a permanent ceasefire.
The Foreign Ministry renewed its accusations that Azerbaijan deliberately targeted cities and civilian infrastructure in the Nagorno Karabakh region and in Armenian cities.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Defense in the so-called "Republic of Nagorny Karabakh", which is not recognized, said that Azerbaijan fired artillery at night at various sectors of the front, and continued its attacks this morning.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry statement affirmed adherence to a peaceful settlement of the conflict, while taking all measures to respond to what it described as Azerbaijan's intention to solve the conflict militarily.
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said that his country had asked the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) about its consent to Turkey's use of NATO weapons in the disputed region.
Lavrov's statements
In a related context, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the most important step that must be taken to settle the conflict in Karabakh is the immediate cessation of the language of escalation between the two conflicting parties, and by those he described as external players.
Lavrov said that his country is currently working with Armenia and Azerbaijan to put in place a mechanism to implement the ceasefire agreement, expressing his hope that this mechanism will be announced as soon as possible.
For his part, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov stressed that his country is in constant contact with Turkey, regarding the participation of those he described as mercenaries from Syria and Libya in the Karabakh battles.
The involvement of mercenaries
Bogdanov said, in press statements, that his country has repeatedly confirmed to Ankara that it will not accept the involvement of mercenaries in the conflict, and "Sputnik" agency quoted an informed Russian source as saying that more than a thousand militants from Syria were sent to Karabakh last week, and that a new batch of Fighters will be sent soon.
The head of Russian intelligence, Sergey Naryshkin, had expressed his concern about the transformation of the South Caucasus into a stronghold of those he described as terrorists, in light of the continuing conflict in the region between Baku and Yerevan.
It is noteworthy that Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan according to international law, but the majority of the population of the region are Armenians, and it separated from Baku shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This led to the outbreak of a war that left 30,000 dead, and in 1994 a ceasefire was declared. The fire, but the clashes did not completely subside.