Frozen conflict flares up again in Nagorniy Karabach

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35949991

Nagorno-Karabakh violence: Worst clashes in decades kill dozens
52 minutes ago

Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the disputed Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia said 18 ethnic-Armenian troops died in the fighting early on Saturday, among the worst in two decades.
Azerbaijan said it had lost 12 troops and there were unconfirmed reports of civilian deaths on both sides.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been in the hands of ethnic-Armenian separatists since a war that ended in 1994.
There was more firing across the frontline overnight into Sunday, the two countries said, but no deaths were reported.
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Russia, which has sold arms to both sides, called for an immediate ceasefire and for both sides to exercise restraint.
Azerbaijan said its armed forces had come under fire first from large-calibre artillery and grenade-launchers, and that it had taken over two strategic hills and a village.

The Armenian government said Azerbaijan had launched a "massive attack" with tanks, artillery and helicopters.
The Armenian-backed defence ministry in Karabakh said a 12-year-old boy had been killed and two other children injured.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has spoken with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts - Seyran Ohanyan and Zakir Hasanov - by phone, Interfax reported, in an effort to calm the situation.
Fighting between the two sides began in the late 1980s and escalated into full-scale war in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, killing about 30,000 people before a ceasefire in 1994.
The region, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, has since run its own affairs with Armenian military and financial backing, but clashes break out on a regular basis.

Analysis: Konul Khalilova, BBC Azeri
The fighting that erupted on Friday night is some of the worst since a 1994 ceasefire between the two sides. Azerbaijan says it has taken back two strategically important villages from the Armenian army, a claim denied by Armenia. As usual, both sides say the other pulled the trigger first.
There are reports of civilian casualties on both sides. Witnesses told the BBC's Azeri service that people were being evacuated from villages near to the conflict zone and that others were hiding in basements.
Both President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Armenia's President Sargsyan are on their way back from the international nuclear summit in Washington.
Azerbaijan has purchased at least $4bn worth of arms from Russia. Armenia, an important strategic partner of Russia in the Caucasus, also buys weapons from Russia. There are concerns that the fighting could lead to a more wide-scale military conflict.
Leaders on both sides have been blamed for not making enough effort to achieve peace and instead using the conflict as a tool to stay in power. Nationalist sentiment boosted by pro-government media in both societies has been at its height in recent years.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has expressed "grave concern" over the reported large-scale ceasefire violations.
The co-chairmen of the body's Minsk Group - ambassadors Igor Popov of Russia, James Warlick of the US, and Pierre Andrieu of France - issued a joint statement saying: "We strongly condemn the use of force and regret the senseless loss of life, including civilians.
"The co-chairs call upon the sides to stop shooting and take all necessary measures to stabilise the situation on the ground. They reiterate that there is no alternative to a peaceful negotiated solution of the conflict and that war is not an option."
Frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
AZERBAIJAN NAGORNO KARABAKH ARMY SOLDIER 3
The conflict has roots dating back over a century to competition between Christian Armenian and Muslim Turkic and Persian influences
Frictions exploded into violence when the region's parliament voted to join Armenia in the late 1980s
The ethnic Azeri population - about 25% of the total before the war - fled Karabakh and Armenia while ethnic Armenians fled the rest of Azerbaijan
Russian-brokered ceasefire signed in 1994, leaving Karabakh and swathes of Azeri territory around the enclave in Armenian hands
Progress on a peace process stalled after talks between Armenian and Azeri leaders in 2009. Serious ceasefire violations have followed
Karabakh is a word of Turkic and Persian origin meaning "black garden", while "Nagorno" is a Russian word meaning "mountain"

[K. A. Pital]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/a ... ian-forces

At least 30 soldiers and a boy were reported killed as heavy fighting erupted between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The fighting was one of the worst outbreaks since the end of a full-scale war over the region in 1994.

Since 1994, mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh – officially part of Azerbaijan – has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military. Armenian forces also occupy several areas outside Nagorno-Karabakh proper. The sides are separated by a demilitarised buffer zone, but small clashes have broken out frequently.

Each side blamed the other for Saturday’s escalation. In a statement, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said that 12 of its soldiers “became shahids” – Muslim martyrs – and that one of its helicopters had been shot down. The statement also claimed that more than 100 Armenian soldiers had been killed or wounded and that six tanks and 15 artillery positions had been destroyed.
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The Armenian president, Serzh Sargsyan, told his national security council that 18 Armenian soldiers had been killed and 35 wounded. Armenia had earlier claimed to have inflicted heavy damage on Azerbaijani forces, without giving figures. A statement from the Nagorno-Karabakh defence ministry claimed more than 200 Azerbaijani soldiers were killed, but there was no corroboration for that figure.

“This is the most wide-scale military action that Azerbaijan has tried to carry out since the establishment of the 1994 ceasefire regime,” Sargsyan said.

David Babayan, a spokesman for Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist president, said a boy of about 12 had been killed and two other children wounded in a Grad missile barrage by Azerbaijani forces. He also characterised the fighting as the worst since 1994.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, urged all sides to cease firing and “show restraint”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. Russia’s foreign and defence ministers had contacted their Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts in the hope of stabilising the situation, the ministries said.

“The situation along the entire length of the line of opposition between Karabakhi and Azerbaijani armed forces continues to be extremely difficult,” Armenian defence ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan told Associated Press.

Years of negotiations mediated by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have brought little progress in resolving the territorial dispute.

The negotiation efforts are led by a troika of envoys from the US, Russia and France. On Saturday, the envoys jointly issued a statement calling on both sides “to stop shooting and take all necessary means to stabilise the situation on the ground”.

Armenian forces also occupy several areas outside Nagorno-Karabakh. The sides are separated by a demilitarised buffer zone, but both claim frequent violations by the other.

The Armenian defence ministry said Azerbaijan had used aircraft, tanks and artillery to try to make inroads into Nagorno-Karabakh and that “Azerbaijani authorities bear all responsibility for the unprecedentedly supercharged situation”.

The Azerbaijani defence ministry said the fighting began when Armenian forces fired mortars and large-calibre artillery shells across the frontline. Ministry spokesman Vagif Dargyakhly told Associated Press that more than 120 shots had been fired, some of which hit civilian residential areas.

The timing couldn't be worse, but it looks like there could be a less obvious connection of these events with the collapse of the global oil prices (Azerbajan's economy is a typical poor petrostate and it suffered a currency devaluation shock up to the closing of shops and mass defaults last December) and the sanctions against Russia, which had further effects on its trade partners.


(Downed Mi-24 of the Azerbajan Airforce.)

NGK was one of the areas where the collapse of the USSR led to an almost immediate bloodbath with thousands of civilian deaths. Hope the parties involved have wisened up and will manage to defuse the situation now, some 20+ years later.

[K. A. Pital]

Took the liberty to merge both reports as they feature different media outlets (Guardian, BBC).

[mr friendly guy]

Might be a good time to post Simon Reeves Places that don't exist from IIRC 2002. It gives a basic grasp of the why each side hates the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeaLR3OJucA

[Dominus Atheos]

Might be a good time to post Simon Reeves Places that don't exist from IIRC 2002. It gives a basic grasp of the why each side hates the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeaLR3OJucA

Not available in the US apparently.

(So that's know what that feels like )

Edit: I think this might be the same video

[mr friendly guy]

Yeah, that's the one.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There might be a ceasefire

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35953916

Nagorno-Karabakh fighting: Azerbaijan 'calls truce'
3 April 2016

Azerbaijan has announced a "unilateral ceasefire" in fighting with Armenian forces over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
A defence ministry spokesman said the Azeris were acting in response to international calls to halt violence.
But the Armenia-backed Karabakh forces said this was false and Azerbaijan was continuing to fire shells.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been in the hands of ethnic-Armenian separatists since a war that ended in 1994.
Fighting had continued into Sunday, after clashes left 30 soldiers dead and caused civilian casualties.
The conflict that refuses to go away
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Nagorno-Karabakh profile
"Azerbaijan, showing goodwill, has decided to unilaterally cease hostilities," the Azeri defence ministry said in a statement.
It warned it would strike back if its forces came under attack.
But David Babayan, a Karabakh military spokesman, told AFP news agency that fighting had not stopped.
"Fierce fighting is under way on south-eastern and north-eastern sectors of the Karabakh frontline," he said.
Another spokesman, Senor Hasratyan, was quoted by Armenian media as saying Azeri forces were using Grad missiles and heavy artillery to shell the northern Karabakh area of Martakert.
Other reports from Armenia said two Karabakh soldiers had been injured in the fighting.

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said he backed Azerbaijan "to the end" in the clashes.
Turkey has close ties to Baku but does not have relations with Armenia because of the dispute over mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman era, which Armenia says was a genocide. Turkey staunchly denies this.
On Saturday Armenia said 18 ethnic-Armenian troops had died, while Azerbaijan said it had lost 12 troops.
There were also civilian casualties. The Karabakh defence ministry said a 12-year-old boy had been killed and two other children injured.
The Azeri authorities said two men had died, both passengers in separate vehicles which were struck by artillery fire. A further 10 people were injured, they added.
Azerbaijan accused the Armenians of firing on areas away from the front line, striking a primary school, houses and factories.

Each side blamed the other for starting the violence. Azerbaijan said its forces had taken over two strategic hills and a village but lost a helicopter.
Armenia's government said Azerbaijan had launched a "massive attack" with tanks, artillery and helicopters.
The BBC's Reyhan Demytrie in Tbilisi says there have long been fears that hostilities between the two nations, which are highly militarised and possess sophisticated weaponry, could spiral out of control.
Mr Erdogan also criticised the Minsk Group - a body under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), chaired by the US, Russia and France and tasked with resolving the conflict.
He said it had "underestimated" the situation.
"If the Minsk Group had taken fair and decisive steps over this, such incidents would not have happened. However, the weaknesses of the Minsk Group unfortunately led the situation to this point," he told an Azeri reporter during his trip to the US, the presidency said.

Fighting between the two sides began in the late 1980s and escalated into full-scale war in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, killing about 30,000 people before a ceasefire in 1994.
The region, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, has since run its own affairs with Armenian military and financial backing, but clashes break out on a regular basis.
BBC Azeri's Konul Khalilova says leaders on both sides have been blamed for stoking the conflict to stay in power rather than seeking peace.

[mr friendly guy]

Shit. Fighting still continues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/az ... story.html

[K. A. Pital]

Azerbajan ordered strikes on Stepanakert, the de-facto capital of the unrecognized state. And...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said that he will stand with Azerbaijan “to the end” and that “we pray our Azerbaijani brothers will prevail in these clashes,” his office reported.

Oh, that's nice. I guess Erdy is trying to jump above his head again here.

[mr friendly guy]

I am tempted to mock Erdogan with "I like to see you try," but then he might very well actually do and escalate the conflict even more.

[Thanas]

Erdogan has the classic short-dick syndrome, the guy will never back down from anything.

[Honorius]

Not sure if its worth the paper its printed on yet.

Well Azerbaijan was in the right here. It is their territory and Armenia never obeyed UN orders to leave. So blaming Azerbaijan for this is blatant double standards.

Besides, the separatists started it, and had been repeatably skirmishing with Azerbaijan for years leading up to this. Azerbaijan finally said enough and dealt the Separatists a blow and restored control to parts of its territory. If the Separatists persist, Azerbaijan is well within its rights to restore its territorial sovereignty and to kick out the Armenian Occupiers in its territory.

[mr friendly guy]

Both sides I believed have dirtied their hands and have ethnically cleansed each other from various regions.

[Elheru Aran]

And here I was thinking this was some kind of obscure pop-cultural issue with a Disney movie... (I didn't actually think it would *actually* be that, but that's what the title keeps making me think for some reason. Not sure why.)