Azerbaijan says it has launched “anti-terrorist operations” in Karabakh, almost three years after it went to war with Armenia over the disputed mountainous region.
Blasts were heard Tuesday in the Armenian separatist stronghold of Khankandi which Armenians call Stepanakert in the breakaway region.
Separatists said Karabakh towns and cities are “under intensive fire”.
“Mass shelling has started here,” Ruen Vardanyan, a former state minister of Karabakh said on Telegram.
Baku said it had informed the command of Russian peacekeepers and leadership of Turkish-Russian monitoring center about military activities it was carrying out in Karabakh. Its foreign ministry said Karabakh separatist “regime” must be dissolved.
Russia said it was in contact with Azerbaijan over the operations.
The developments come after months of mounting tensions between the Caucasus neighbors and hours after Baku said six Azerbaijanis were killed by mine explosions in Karabakh, blaming Armenian separatists.
“Localized anti-terrorist measures have been launched in the region,” Baku’s defense ministry said, adding it was using “high precision weapons on the front line and in depth as part of the operations.”
Armenia’s defense ministry said the situation on its border with Azerbaijan was stable.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decades-long conflict over Karabakh, going to war in the 1990s and in 2020.
The breakaway region populated by Armenians since 1990 is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Baku has cited “systemic shelling” of Azerbaijani positions by Armenian separatists in Karabakh as well as “the continuing mining of our territories” and accused Yerevan of a troop buildup.
It said it had “repeatedly warned” of what it called violations of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that ended a 2020 war between the neighbors, calling them “a serious source of threat for peace and stability in the region.”
Baku said it wanted to “suppress large-scale provocations” in Karabakh. Its aims also included the “disarmament and withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from our territories” and “the safety of the civilian population” returning to territories it reclaimed in 2020.
Hours earlier, Baku said four policemen and two civilians were killed in mine explosions staged by “Armenian separatist groups.”
In a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan regained control of pockets of Karabakh with fighting ending with a Russian-brokered peace deal.
