Azerbaijani forces attack Karabakh cities with rockets, according to Yerevan
The Azerbaijani forces attacked several towns in Nagorno-Karabakh with rockets in the last hours, including the capital Stepanakert, where several civilians were injured, denounced the Armenian Ministry of Defence.
"After midnight and this morning, the enemy resumed attacks on peaceful settlements in Artsaj (as Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians call it)," Shushan Stepanian, the spokesperson for the portfolio, wrote on Facebook.
She pointed out that Azerbaijan launched Smerch (Tornado) rockets against Stepanakert and Shushi (Shusha, for the Azerbaijanis) and several surrounding towns. "The bombing caused several injuries", Stepanakert added, who assured that the anti-aircraft forces shot down an enemy Bayraktar drone, which is made by Turkey.
According to the Armenian spokesperson, the situation on the front is tense, but has not changed substantially.
The army of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic reported it suffered 51 fatalities in the last 24 hours, bringing to 1,119 the number of Armenian soldiers killed since the resumption of the war on September 27.
"Residents of Barda will be avenged and the occupiers will have a befitting retaliation on battlefield," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev wrote on Twitter after the Armenian rocket attack on Wednesday against the Azerbaijani city that left 21 dead and dozens wounded.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence reported that Armenian troops attacked with all kinds of weapons the positions of the country's armed forces in different sectors of the front early this morning.
The upsurge in military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh area comes amidst the third humanitarian truce in place since last Monday.
As in the two previous cases, the agreement on this ceasefire, reached last weekend in Washington with US mediation, was never fulfilled.
During the consultations in the US capital, a meeting was also agreed between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Jeihun Bayrámov and Zohrab Mnatsakanián, which was due to take place in Geneva this Thursday.
However, Baku proposed postponing the Geneva consultations until Friday, specifying that Bayrámov was not planning to meet his Armenian counterpart.
"A meeting between Bayramov and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs was scheduled for Oct. 29 in Geneva," Spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva told EFE.
The President of Azerbaijan said he was ready to negotiate with Armenia, provided that "these negotiations make sense" and "speed up the resolution of the conflict".
But Aliyev has warned Ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh is possible only when Armenia presents a schedule of withdrawal of its forces from Nagorno-Karabakh, which it has occupied since 1994.
