BAKU (Sputnik) — On Saturday, Armenia and Azerbaijan noted a sharp escalation of the situation in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh area, with both sides accusing each other of violating the ceasefire that has been in place since 1994.
"Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has addressed the heads of the OSCE Minsk Group, CIS, the general secretaries of the UN and NATO, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini. The address describes the Armenian armed forces regularly shelling populated areas, leading to civilian casualties," ministry spokesman Hikmet Hajiyev told RIA Novosti.
The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988, when the Armenian-dominated autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, before proclaiming independence after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. In September 2015, the conflict escalated, with the sides blaming each other for violating the truce.
