{"id":24340,"date":"2016-04-03T02:50:52","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T02:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/dozens-killed-in-nagorno-karabakh-clashes\/"},"modified":"2016-04-03T02:50:41","modified_gmt":"2016-04-03T02:50:41","slug":"dozens-killed-in-nagorno-karabakh-clashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/dozens-killed-in-nagorno-karabakh-clashes\/","title":{"rendered":"Dozens killed in Nagorno-Karabakh clashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan trade blame after at least 30 soldiers killed during fighting in disputed region.}<\/p>\n

At least 30 soldiers have been killed in fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, officials of both countries said, each blaming the other for violence.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan said in a statement on Saturday that Armenian forces had killed 12 of its soldiers and shot down a helicopter in the fighting, which broke out overnight.<\/p>\n

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian said that 18 of his country’s soldiers had been killed and 35 wounded, not specifying if the soldiers belonged to Yerevan-backed separatist forces in Karabakh or Armenia’s armed forces.<\/p>\n

“Active combat is currently under way,” Armenian Defence Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan said on Facebook.<\/p>\n

“The Armenian Army has launched a counter-attack. There are victims on both sides but the opposing side has sustained huge losses in manpower and equipment. An [Azerbaijani] helicopter has been shot down.” <\/p>\n

Azerbaijan said its forces had taken “two strategic heights and a village” in Karabakh.<\/p>\n

The Armenian Defence Ministry said Azerbaijani troops started an offensive with tanks and artillery. Azerbaijan denied those allegations, saying its soldiers were reacting to heavy attacks from the Armenian side. <\/p>\n

Putin urges restraint<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged both sides to stop fighting and “show restraint”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.<\/p>\n

Russia’s foreign and defense ministers contacted their Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts in hopes of stabilising the situation, the ministries said.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement saying that the United States “condemns in the strongest terms the large scale ceasefire violations.”<\/p>\n

Nagorno-Karabakh has been under the control of the Armenian military and separatists since a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended in 1994. Years of negotiations have brought little progress in resolving the dispute, though a fragile truce has been in place.<\/p>\n

The fresh fighting was the worst since 1994, David Babayan, a spokesman for the region’s separatist president, said.<\/p>\n

Maria Titzian, a lecturer at the American University of Armenia, told Al Jazeera: “For the past 20 months Azerbaijan has been escalating tensions in terms of truce violations.”<\/p>\n

“This corner of the world has been long ignored,” she said. “I think it’s time for the world to pay greater attention to the situation here. It will have a large influence on the greater region if this issue is not resolved peacefully.”<\/p>\n

\"Heavy<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan trade blame after at least 30 soldiers killed during fighting in disputed region.} At least 30 soldiers have been killed in fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, officials of both countries said, each blaming the other for violence. Azerbaijan said in a statement on Saturday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24340"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24340"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}