Several deaths, the threat of a “coup” … what we know about the fighting in Karabakh, a region disputed by Azerbaijan and Armenia

The capital of Nagorno-Karabakh is under “intensive shelling.” According to the latest report published late in the day, five people have already been killed and 80 injured as a result of the fighting carried out as part of the military operation launched by Azerbaijan on Tuesday morning. Events update.

What’s happened ?

Azerbaijan launched an “anti-terrorist” military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday morning, three years after the previous war, demanding the “complete and unconditional” withdrawal of its Armenian rival from the region, which has been disputed with Armenia for decades. Fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh has left at least five people dead and 80 injured, including 15 civilians, according to a new report released Tuesday by Armenian separatist authorities.

Armenian separatists claim that several cities in Nagorno-Karabakh, including the capital Stepanakert, have come under “intensive shelling”, including on civilian infrastructure. According to them, the Azerbaijani army is trying to advance “deeper” into Karabakh. However, the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is currently “stable,” said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The latter also condemned calls for a “coup d’etat” in Armenia, and television reported hundreds of demonstrators gathered in front of government headquarters in Yerevan. The Armenian opposition has tried several times for three years to force his resignation, accusing him of being responsible for Armenia’s military defeat during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020.

What is Armenia accused of?

Baku justified its operation by citing the deaths of four police officers and two Azerbaijani civilians when a mine exploded at the site of a tunnel under construction between Shusha and Fizuli, two towns in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijani control. This region is one of the most heavily mined in the former USSR, but Azerbaijani security services claim that a group of Armenian separatist “saboteurs” planted these mines, committing a “terrorist act.”

At the same time, Baku accused the Armenian army of wounding two Azerbaijani soldiers during mortar and small arms fire in northeast Karabakh, and of firing small arms at night at Azerbaijani positions in the Qadabey region, on the Karabakh-Karabakh border. two countries. She also accuses Armenian separatists of attacking the GPS system of an Azerbaijani airliner using radio interference.

Azerbaijani diplomacy warned that “the only way to achieve peace and stability” is the “unconditional and complete withdrawal of Armenian armed forces” from the territory and “the dissolution of the so-called separatist regime.” The Armenian Ministry of Defense assured him “that Armenia does not (have) an army in Nagorno-Karabakh,” implying that its separatist allies faced the enemy army alone. Comments that Nikol Pashinyan echoed a little later, accusing Baku of wanting to “drag Armenia into hostilities.”

What is Karabakh?

Nagorno-Karabakh is at the center of a long-running conflict between the two countries, which have fought two wars over the Armenian-majority Caucasus enclave, which is recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Over the centuries it changed hands many times.

Following the Soviet army’s withdrawal from the region following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, escalating violence led to the first open war. About 30,000 people died there until Russia negotiated a ceasefire in 1994. A new conflict erupted in the fall of 2020, killing 6,500 people in six weeks. The war ended with a crushing defeat for Armenia, which was forced to cede significant territories around and inside the enclave to Azerbaijan.

Although Nagorno-Karabakh has its own institutions and government, it today enjoys political, economic and military support from Armenia. Tensions reignited in July 2022 when Azerbaijan set up checkpoints and then blocked traffic in the Lachin corridor, the only route linking Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, leading to severe shortages of food and medicine in the region.

What reactions?

Armenia condemned the “large-scale aggression” for the purpose of “ethnic cleansing.” It also ruled that Russia, the guarantor of the ceasefire reached at the end of the last conflict in 2020, must “stop Azerbaijani aggression.” A “concerned” Kremlin said through its spokesman that it was trying to persuade Armenia and Azerbaijan to return “to the negotiating table.”

France, for its part, demanded an “urgent convening of a meeting of the UN Security Council,” condemning the military operation, while Emmanuel Macron spoke with the Prime Minister of Armenia. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would contact both sides. European Council President Charles Michel, who has led mediation between the two countries in the past, concluded that Azerbaijan must cease its activities “immediately.”