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Tensions are rising between the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic backed by Armenia and Azerbaijan. The separatists of the ethnically Armenian enclave declared a partial military mobilization this Wednesday, August 3, after accusing Baku of an attack that left at least two dead and 14 wounded among the secessionist troops. For its part, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of shelling positions near the disputed territory and killing one of its soldiers.
The self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh accuses Azerbaijan of “a gross violation of the ceasefire” for drone attacks that have left at least two dead and 14 wounded among its troops.
As a result, the Karabakh separatists announced the partial mobilization of their forces.
“The President of the Republic of Artsakh (Armenian name of Nagorno-Karabakh), Araik Harutiunián, signed a decree declaring partial mobilization from August 3, 2022,” says a statement from the press service of the Karabakh Presidency.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry acknowledged the attack and said it was in retaliation for a similar action.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a breakaway region that lies within the territory of Azerbaijan, but for more than a century it has resisted Azeri control and has been under the regulation of Armenian ethnic forces backed by the Government of that country since the end of a war. secessionist in 1994.
However, in 2020 Baku launched a new conflict in the area in which it successfully recaptured part of the territory controlled by the separatists. A confrontation of about six weeks that left more than 6,600 dead, including about 3,000 Armenian soldiers.
Now, the tension rises and threatens to escalate. Azerbaijan published this Wednesday images of its Bayraktar TB2 drone, to attack Armenian positions in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In recent days fighting broke out across the territory and Baku claimed to have killed 4 separatist soldiers and wounded 15 others.
Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of bombing positions of its Army and causing one death
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry noted that one of its country’s service members was killed in what it alleged was a “terrorist act” by “illegal Armenian military formations.”
In response to the alleged attack, the Azerbaijani Army carried out a “retaliatory operation,” killing and wounding an unspecified number of “illegal Armenian militants,” it said.
The trigger for the new confrontation is not clear, as the two sides accuse each other of violating the ceasefire, negotiated by Russia and with which the 2020 war ended. Under a possible peace plan, Moscow has sent some 2,000 soldiers to the region .
However, Yerevan and Nagorno-Karabakh and Baku separatists regularly trade accusations of firing projectiles across the border.
Tensions have been building on the shared border between Armenia and Azerbaijan since May 2021, when Armenians protested what they described as an incursion by Azerbaijani troops into their territory.
Baku demanded in the last hours the withdrawal of the Armenian troops around Nagorno-Karabakh and the Russian Ministry of Defense affirmed that the situation in the disputed enclave and its surroundings is “deteriorating”.
Last Monday, August 1, the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, spoke separately with the leaders of the two countries to try to push the former Soviet republics towards peace, but the clashes continue.
With Reuters and AP
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