Nagorno-Karabakh truce in jeopardy as accusations of violations fly

Hopes that a Russian-brokered ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan would hold have been dashed after each side accused the other of shelling civilian areas and escalating two weeks of fierce clashes.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said that overnight shelling by Armenian forces on the country’s second largest city, Ganja, had left seven people dead and 33 wounded including children, less than 24 hours after the halt to fighting was supposed to take effect.

One witness said they had been woken by a huge blast that levelled nine apartments. “Everything I’ve worked for my entire life has been destroyed,” said Zagit Aliyev, 68.

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The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers approved an agreement to pause hostilities in order to exchange prisoners and the bodies of people killed after two weeks of fighting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region after marathon talks in Moscow.

The truce officially came into force at midday on Saturday, but both sides almost immediately accused each other of violations.

The defence ministry in the breakaway region said on Sunday that Armenian forces were respecting the humanitarian ceasefire and accused Azerbaijan of shelling civilian areas.

Claims that Armenian forces were responsible for shelling Ganja were “an absolute lie”, it said.

The leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, described the situation on Sunday as “calmer”, but said the truce was precarious.

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Vahram Poghosyan, a spokesman for Harutyunyan, said the overnight shelling of Stepanakert was “a disrespect of the agreements reached in Moscow”, and called on the international community to recognise the province’s independence as a way to end the fighting.

New fighting broke out late last month, stemming from a long-simmering disagreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. The disputed territory is an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, home to about 150,000 people, which broke from Azerbaijan’s control in a war in the 1990s during which about 30,000 people were killed.

The return of fighting has stoked fears of a full-blown war embroiling Turkey, which strongly backs Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a military treaty with Armenia.

Armenia and world leaders including the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, have denounced the deployment of pro-Turkish fighters from Syria and Libya to bolster Azerbaijan’s army.

A senior Azerbaijani official said on Saturday the truce was only meant to be temporary, and said Baku had no intention of backtracking in its efforts to retake control of Nagorno-Karabakh.