Baku suburbs struck by Armenian missiles: Azeri govt.

The Azerbaijan Republic says its Armenian enemy has launched missile attacks against an area near the Azeri capital of Baku.

Azerbaijan’s presidential aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, tweeted on Sunday that the Armenian military has targeted the Absheron rayon in the suburbs of Baku as well as the Xızı town located 104km north of the capital.

“The Armenian forces fired two medium-range missiles (300km) against Absheron and Xızı on Sunday at 23:10 (local time),” he said in his tweet.

Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general says the city of Mingecevir, located 308km west of Baku, has also been targeted by three Armenian missiles.

In this attack, five civilians have been wounded and transferred to the hospital, the Azeri official said.

The prosecutor general’s office says a total of 19 civilians were killed on October 3 and 63 others were injured while 44 nonmilitary sites and 181 houses were destroyed as a result of attacks by Armenian forces.

These include rocket attacks against Azerbaijan’s second biggest city Ganja, which killed one civilian and wounded four.

Iran’s Baku embassy condemns attacks on civilians, nonmilitary sites in Karabakh war

Iran’s embassy in Baku slams recent attacks on civilians and nonmilitary targets during the ongoing clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Armenia, on the other side, says Nagorno-Karabakh's main city Stepanakert, which has been under artillery fire since Friday, was hit again on Sunday and AFP journalists said there were regular explosions and clouds of black smoke rising in parts of the city.

EU calls for immediate ceasefire

Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said on Sunday that “the increase of civilian casualties is unacceptable” and that “fighting should stop immediately”.

“Negotiations should start as soon as possible under the Minsk Group Co-chairs,” he said.

Spoke to ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the weekend. The increase of civilian casualties is unacceptable. Fighting should stop immediately. Negotiations should start as soon as possible under @OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) October 4, 2020

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, a body led by France, the US and Russia, has so far organized numerous rounds of negotiations between Baku and Yerevan, but to no avail.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says Nagorno-Karabakh region is an inalienable part of Azerbaijan and that it must return to the country, demanding that neighboring Armenia set a timetable for a swift pullout from the disputed enclave.

“Azerbaijan has one condition, and that is the liberation of its territories,” said Aliyev, in a televised address to the nation on Sunday, stressing that “Nagorno-Karabakh is the territory of Azerbaijan. We must return and we shall return.”

The Azerbaijani leader’s tone made clear that he would not welcome calls for an immediate ceasefire as Russia, the United States, and the European Union (EU), among others, have already urged Baku several times to hold a truce.

Aliyev also said Baku in the past had repeatedly called for sanctions against Armenia, but all to no avail, blaming Yerevan and some European leaders for the current situation.

Ilham Aliyev vows to return Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, demands Armenian pullout timetable

‘Azerbaijan has one condition, and that is the liberation of its territories.’

So far, the main clashes have been between Azerbaijani forces and Armenian-backed separatist forces of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.

However, as fighting escalates, concern is that it will turn into a direct war with Armenia, which has so far denied that it had directed fire “of any kind” toward Azerbaijan.

Aliyev further vowed on Sunday that Baku would not cease military action until Yerevan set a timetable for withdrawing from Nagorno-Karabakh and acknowledge that the enclave is part of Azerbaijan.

“The Azeri soldier is chasing them like a dog, the Azeri soldier is standing at their posts, we have taken their weaponry, we are carrying out the mission of liberation,” he added.

Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it has an Armenian population because ethnic Azeris fled the territory in 1992 when separatists seized it in a move supported by Yerevan after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Firefight began between the two sides on Sep. 27 after Armenian separatists began waging battles against Azerbaijani forces. More than 100 have reportedly died amid the situation that is the worst one to afflict the region since war in early 1990s.

Now intense fighting rages on between Azerbaijan and Armenia, with Baku claiming to have captured the city of Jebrayil – which was under the Armenian control for 30 years – in heavy clashes over the mountain enclave.

As fierce clashes between the two South Caucasus neighbors entered the eighth day on Sunday, local sources reported new strikes followed by several explosions in Khankendi, the main city of the breakaway region of Karabakh.

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