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Azerbaijan claims 'liberating' six villages from Armenia

Azerbaijan also refuted the Armenian claims that it had downed the former's two military choppers

Sunday September 27, 2020 6:14 PM, ummid.com with inputs from Agencies

Yerevan/Baku: Azerbaijan on Sunday said its forces have liberated six villages it claims its own but were under the Armenian control till now.

“We have liberated six villages – five in Fizuli district and one in Jebrail district,” a defence ministry spokesman told the AFP news agency.

Azerbaijan also refuted the Armenian claims that it had downed the former's two military choppers.

Armenia on Sunday announced Martial Law and mass mobilisation of forces as its troops battled Azerbaijan in the disputed border area of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian region.

Declarinh Martial Law, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called on his people to defend their “homeland”.

“Get ready to defend our sacred homeland,” he wrote on Facebook, adding “the government has decided to declare martial law and a total mobilisation”.

Azerbaijan’s army on the other hand said there was no need for total military mobilisation due to a flare up in tensions with Armenia over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, since its army is fully staffed.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan that has been out of Azerbaijan’s control since the end of a war in 1994. Both sides have heavy military presence along a demilitarized zone separating the region from the rest of Azerbaijan.

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has flared repeatedly since Armenians took control of the territory and seven surrounding districts from Azerbaijan in a war after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Hundreds were killed in a five-day war in 2016 before Russia pressured both sides to resume a cease-fire that was first brokered in 1994. Despite decades of mediation by the U.S., France and Russia, no peace agreement has been signed.

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