Azerbaijan-Armenia tensions updates: Azeri attack in Nagorno-Karabakh

Separatists in the breakaway region said more than 7,000 people from 16 villages in the mountainous territory had been evacuated after Azerbaijan launched a military operation.

“Over 7,000 people have been evacuated from 16 civilian communities of Askeran, Martakert, Martuni, Shushi regions of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh,” Gegham Stepanyan, Karabakh’s rights ombudsman, said in a statement on social media.

In a call with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, French President Emmanuel Macron urged “an immediate resumption of discussions” to find a “just and lasting peace” between Armenia and Azerbaijan, calling for an “immediate cessation of the offensive”, according to a news statement.

Earlier, Macron had called on Azerbaijan to immediately end its military operation against the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia’s security council has warned of large-scale unrest in the country after protesters took to the streets over the government’s handling of escalating tensions in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“There is currently a real danger of mass turmoil in the Republic of Armenia. The NSC [National Security Council] will take effective measures to maintain constitutional order in the country,” it said in a statement.

Protesters in Armenia’s capital Yerevan have called on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign after he denounced calls for a “coup” as Azerbaijan launched a military operation in Armenian-populated Karabakh.

Hundreds of people gathered in Yerevan’s Republic Square, outside Pashinyan’s offices, to denounce his handling of the Karabakh crisis, according to an AFP journalist on the scene, with demonstrators shouting “Nikol traitor!” and “Nikol resign!”

Armenia’s opposition has accused Pashinyan of being weak on Karabakh, a breakaway region populated mainly by ethnic Armenians over which Yerevan and Baku have been locked in a dispute for decades.

Twenty-five people have been killed as a result of an Azerbaijan’s military offensive, a separatist Armenian human rights official in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh told Reuters.

Gegham Stepanyan said 138 people, including 29 civilians, had been wounded.

Al Jazeera could not verify his assertion.

Azerbaijan has launched a “local but limited counter-terrorism measures” aimed at striking military targets, the foreign policy adviser to President Ilham Aliyev told Al Jazeera.

In response to reports of at least 23 people having been wounded, including eight children, Hikmet Hajiyev said, “In no way is the Azerbaijan side targeting civilians. We have high-precision weapons and there are pre-determined military objectives.”

However, he said that “collateral damage” was likely unavoidable as civilians were being used as “human shields” in the contested region.

“We call on all civilians to take a safe distance from military targets,” he said.

Russia has called for an end to hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying Moscow had contacted both parties urging for renewed negotiations.

The Russian contingent deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after the 2020 ceasefire hasn’t been able to prevent any of the Azerbaijani military actions since then, nor has it been able to bar Azerbaijan from establishing the blockade of the Lachin Corridor, a road linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. It is also unable to stop the current offensive.

Marie Dumoulin, Director of the Wider Europe Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that after mediating the 2020 ceasefire, Russia has been “unwilling to take sides in the conflict, effectively allowing Azerbaijan to steer the situation”.

“Whether Russia is now able to mediate a renewed ceasefire remains to be seen. This would probably come with a high political cost for the Armenian government,” Dumoulin said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera.

Turkey’s foreign ministry has said Azerbaijan was forced to take measures on its sovereign territory in Nargorno-Karabakh after its concerns were not alleviated following the 2020 conflict with Armenia in the region.

“As a result of its rightful and legitimate concerns about the situation on the ground that it voiced repeatedly not being alleviated in nearly three since the end of the Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijan was forced to take measures it deems necessary on its sovereign territory,” the ministry said in a statement.

“We believe that continuing the comprehensive talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which have been held meticulously until today, in a result-oriented manner is the only way to achieving peace, security, prosperity, and lasting stability in the region.”

The ministry also said the foreign ministers of Turkey and Azerbaijan discussed developments in the region on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The flare-up of tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia has been “nothing surprising”, Laurence Broers, Caucasus Programme director at Conciliation Resources, told Al Jazeera.

“There have been articles published on the Azerbaijani press calling for such an operation to take place” as a remedy to the “incomplete victory” achieved in 2020, the latest military escalation in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Broers added that Azerbaijan likely aims to achieve a situation where the presence of Russian soldiers – currently deployed as peacekeepers – will not be “imaginable or necessary.”

“Azerbaijan sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity to solve this conflict, which has afflicted the country for 30 years, on its terms,” he said. “There is a sense of an ultimatum being presented to the population.”

Azerbaijani forces have broken through a line of contact with Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh in several places and are determined to fulfil their strategic goals, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to President Ilham Aliyev, told Reuters.

Armenia denied having any forces in the area. However, many Armenians have in the past volunteered to fight for Nagorno-Karabakh.

Hajiyev said Baku would only be ready to talk to the Karabakh Armenians once they had raised the white flag and disarmed. He said Azerbaijan had no military objectives in neighbouring Armenia.

“The intention of Azerbaijan is to close a chapter of animosity and confrontation,” he said. “Enough is enough. We cannot tolerate any longer having such armed forces on our territory and also a structure which, on a daily basis, challenges the security and sovereignty of Azerbaijan.”

Azerbaijan Ministry of Defence has released footage showing explosion flames rising over a mountainous area which Azerbaijan says hosts Armenian forces’ positions in the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan will continue what it calls its “counter-terrorism operations” in Nagorno-Karabakh “until the end” unless Armenian military units surrender and give up their weapons, the state news agency quoted the presidential administration as saying.

It said the presidency was ready to meet representatives of the ethnic Armenians who control the breakaway mountain enclave within Azerbaijan.

“Nevertheless, for the antiterror measures to stop, the illegal Armenian military formations must raise the white flag, all the weapons must be handed over, and the illegal regime must be dissolved,” it said. “Otherwise, the antiterror measures will be continued until the end.”

In response to calls for negotiations, it claimed Armenians in the Karabakh region had been invited for dialogue on several occasions but “repeatedly rejected it”.

French President Emmanuel Macron has told Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in a phone call that he will call for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council because of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian government said on Tuesday.

“The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh after the attack of Azerbaijan was discussed. Both sides emphasized the inadmissibility of using force and the need to use international mechanisms for de-escalation,” it said in a statement.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said Azerbaijan had broken its promise not to resort to military action on Nagorno-Karabakh and demanded that it halt its military operations.

“Baku’s promise to refrain from military action was broken. Azerbaijan must immediately stop shelling and return to the negotiating table,” Baerbock said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The chaotic rapid collapse of the Soviet Uniin left some unresolved and complex political disputes.

One, between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, has killed or injured tens of thousands of people in conflicts since then.

Tensions are escalating once again. So why is this happening now – and where might it lead?

Watch Inside Story below.

The Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman has said two civilians were killed and 23 wounded in attacks by Azerbaijan’s military.

At least eight of the wounded civilians were children, Gegham Stepanyan said, according to Reuters.

Previous reports indicated 11 people had been wounded, a number Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify. 

The separatist leadership of Azerbaijan’s ethnic Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh has proposed a ceasefire and talks with Baku, the authority’s press office said in a statement.

Separately, in an update on X, formerly known as Twitter, it said the intensity of fire along the line of contact with Azerbaijani forces had “significantly reduced”.

Russia is in touch with both Azerbaijan and Armenia and has urged negotiations in order to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Peskov told a briefing that Russia was concerned about the latest escalation and considered ensuring civilian safety the most important issue.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had said Moscow was “deeply worried about the sharp escalation of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh”.

“Russia strongly encourages the conflicting sides to stop the bloodshed,” she told a news conference. “Stop the military actions at once and return to political and diplomatic settlement.”

United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric has called for all military activity in the Nagorno-Karabakh region to cease and for a “sustained and deep dialogue” to begin.

Dujarric told Al Jazeera UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would speak to both Azerbaijan and Armenia’s delegations, which are currently in New York for the 78th session of the UN General Assembly.

“There is no doubt that this will be raised sooner rather than later,” Dujarric said.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters, said some world leaders were questioning the timing of Azerbaijan’s “anti-terrorist operations” and whether they were meant to coincide with the event in New York.

The French foreign ministry has said no pretext could justify the military operation Azerbaijan launched in Nagorno-Karabakh, adding it was calling for an immediate United Nations security council meeting following Baku’s move.

In a statement, France also said it was working with its partners to prepare a “strong response” to this “unacceptable offensive”.