{"id":3804,"date":"2016-04-02T17:36:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T17:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2016-04-03T15:20:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-03T15:20:12","slug":"at-least3-0-dead-in-clashes-between-armenia-azerbaijan-in-nagorno-karabakh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/at-least3-0-dead-in-clashes-between-armenia-azerbaijan-in-nagorno-karabakh\/","title":{"rendered":"At least 30 dead in clashes between Armenia, Azerbaijan in Nagorno Karabakh"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 12 Azerbaijani and 18 Armenian soldiers killed during clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia<\/p>\n

Armenia and Azerbaijan reported heavy fighting around the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region, killing at least\u00a020 servicemen and drawing international calls for an immediate ceasefire.<\/p>\n

The conflicts continue, particularly in Aghdara, Tartar, Agdam, Khojavend and Fuzuli towns.<\/p>\n

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported shelling and dozens of\u00a0ceasefire violations by\u00a0the Armenian armed forces, while the Armenian Defense Ministry\u00a0has accused Azerbaijani forces of launching a major offensive, involving tanks, heavy artillery, and helicopter gunships.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said 12 of its soldiers “became shahids” \u2014 Muslim martyrs. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry,\u00a0in a statement to the Azeri press agency APA<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0said one of its Mi-24 helicopter was shot down and that one tank had been\u00a0destroyed in a mine explosion.<\/p>\n

The statement also claimed that more than 100 Armenian forces were killed<\/a><\/span> or wounded and that six tanks and 15 artillery positions were destroyed. The ministry claimed the army had “liberated strategic\u00a0heights and settlements” in the region.\u00a0“Six Armenian tanks were destroyed [and] more than 100 Armenian servicemen were killed and injured,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan told his national security council that 18 Armenian soldiers were killed<\/a><\/span> and 35 wounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cArmenia carried out another provocation on the line of contact and attacked the positions of Azerbaijan\u201d, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said during phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n

Armenia lost more than 10 military personnel in the fighting, an official in the capital city of Yerevan told DPA.\u00a0Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Defense Army has published photos<\/a><\/span> to provide evidence of the killed soldiers of Azerbaijan Armed Forces in ArmenPress.<\/p>\n

The Armenian armed forces claimed to have shot down an Azeri military helicopter<\/a><\/span> in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area, Armenian Defense Ministry press secretary Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.<\/p>\n

James Warlick, the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is dedicated to finding a negotiated solution to the regional conflict, said the group is planning to meet Tuesday to discuss the conflict.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan retakes land occupied by Armenia<\/span><\/h3>\n

Azerbaijan says it has reclaimed land occupied by Armenia during clashes over Friday and Saturday which saw 12 Azerbaijani soldiers martyred, Anadolu Agency<\/a><\/span> reported.<\/p>\n

According to a statement from Azerbaijan\u2019s defense ministry, said the army launched operations in the Agdere, Terter, Agdam, Hocavend and Fuzuli regions to protect civilian lives.<\/p>\n

Moscow urges immediate cease-fire in Azerbaijan-Armenia border conflict<\/span><\/h3>\n

Moscow is constantly in touch with Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministries in light of escalated tensions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday.<\/p>\n

“The Russian Foreign Ministry maintains permanent contact with\u00a0the leadership of\u00a0the foreign ministries of\u00a0Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Zakharova was quoted as\u00a0saying on\u00a0the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin also expressed his concern over the ongoing conflicts and called the parties to stop the fighting immediately, said Dmitry Peskov, the Russian presidency advisor.
\nWhat is Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
\nThe conflict between\u00a0Armenia and Azerbaijan began in\u00a01988, after\u00a0the predominantly Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region announced its secession from\u00a0the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.<\/p>\n

Although 95 percent of the Nagorno-Karabakh population is ethnically Armenian, the territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed its independence in\u00a01991, prompting a war that lasted until\u00a0a ceasefire agreement was signed in\u00a01994. In September 2015, the conflict escalated, with\u00a0the sides blaming each other for\u00a0violating the truce.<\/p>\n

The UN Security Council passed four resolutions urging Armenia to withdraw from internationally-recognized Azerbaijani territory. None of them have been enforced to this day.\u00a0The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations.<\/p>\n

Nagorno-Karabakh\u2014the disputed border region between Armenia and Azerbaijan\u2014faces an increasing risk of renewed hostilities due to escalating militarization, frequent cease-fire violations failure of mediation efforts.\u00a0Over the past several years, artillery shelling and minor skirmishes between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops have killed dozens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 12 Azerbaijani and 18 Armenian soldiers killed during clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia Armenia and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[124,62,1],"tags":[144,218,137,143,75,204,6,357,282,20],"class_list":["post-3804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-europe","category-news","tag-armenia","tag-army","tag-asia","tag-azerbaijan","tag-conflict","tag-crisis","tag-defense","tag-europe","tag-nagorno-karabakh","tag-russia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/armenia-azerbaijan.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-Zm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3804"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3824,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions\/3824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}