Azerbaijan launches military action in Karabakh as tensions escalate
Azerbaijan launched military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a step that could presage a new war in the volatile area but which Baku said was necessary to restore constitutional order and drive out Armenian military formations.
Karabakh is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory but part of it is run by breakaway ethnic Armenian authorities who say the area is their ancestral homeland.
In a statement announcing its operation, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry spoke of its intention to “disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of Armenia’s armed forces from our territories, (and) neutralise their military infrastructure, Reuters reported”.
It said it was only targeting legitimate military targets using “high-precision weapons” and not civilians as part of what it called a drive to “restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan”.
Civilians were free to leave by humanitarian corridors, it added, including one to Armenia, whose prime minister, Pashinyan, said the offer looked like another attempt by Baku to get ethnic Armenians to leave Karabakh as part of a campaign of what he called “ethnic cleansing”, an accusation Baku denies.
The Karabakh separatist human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, said that two civilians had been killed and 11 people injured as a result of strikes by Azerbaijan’s military. Reuters could not immediately verify his assertion.