Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced - in his tweet on his Twitter account today, Wednesday - that the army had taken control of 7 new villages in the Nagorno Karabakh region.

Aliyev reported that the Azerbaijani army liberated the villages of Merak and Gudar, belonging to the city of Gabriel, and Mashdi Ismaeli and Shveli, which belong to the city of Zangilan.

He added that there are also liberated villages, which are Bashrat, Qara Kesheler, and Qara Jalali in the city of Qubadli.

On September 27, armed clashes erupted on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in Karabakh province and its adjacent areas, in the most dangerous escalation between the two parties in more than 20 years, amid mutual accusations of starting the fighting and bringing in foreign militants.

Baku says that since the war began, it has managed to regain control of 4 cities, 3 towns and about 200 villages, as well as strategic hills.

The war has been going on in the Karabakh region for more than 6 weeks (Reuters)

Accept defeat

In another tweet, Aliyev said that targeting civilians with the intention of terrorizing them and limiting the Azerbaijani army did not succeed, on the contrary, it increased the determination of Azerbaijan.

He also said: The Azerbaijani army has proven false saying that the Armenian army is strong and invincible, and Armenia must accept its defeat.

In the same context, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense announced that the Armenian forces - which targeted residential areas - suffered heavy losses of lives and equipment, during the clashes that erupted overnight on different axes of the front.

The same ministry stated, in a statement, that the clashes continued intensively on the Agdhara, Khojawand, Tatar, Qubadli and Zangilan axes.

It indicated that the Armenian forces had to withdraw from some areas on the front line, after suffering losses in lives and equipment.

For its part, the Armenian Foreign Ministry considered that the forces of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic - not internationally recognized - have "the right to launch counter strikes" if the bombing of civilian facilities by the Azerbaijani army continues.

"Today, Azerbaijani forces launched strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in the cities of Stepanakert and Shusha with cluster bombs fired from Smirtch rocket launchers," said Anna Nagdalian, a spokeswoman for this ministry, noting that there were casualties.

Tension and effort

For more than a month, tension has prevailed in the Karabakh region, amid a large-scale war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the southern Caucasus, where Ankara and Moscow compete.

Under international law, the 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.

On Tuesday, Moscow said it was studying an Iranian proposal to end the conflict in Karabakh after three ceasefire agreements had failed in the six-week fighting.

In a related context, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that his country will continue to work with Turkey to prevent the expansion of the military confrontation in the Karabakh region.