Death Toll in Armenia-Azerbaijan Border Clashes Reaches 16
Armenia and Azerbaijan forces fought Tuesday with heavy artillery and drones, leaving at least 16 people dead on both sides, including an Azerbaijani general, the Associated Press reports in an article by
"Skirmishes on the volatile border between the two South Caucasus nations began Sunday. Azerbaijan said it has lost 11 servicemen and one civilian in three days of fighting, and Armenia said four of its troops were killed Tuesday.
"The two neighbors in the South Caucasus have been locked in conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. International efforts to settle the conflict have stalled," reads the article.
Both countries were part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in the 1990s.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians.
The conflict has its origins in the early 20th century.
Under the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin decided to make the Nagorno-Karabakh region an autonomous oblast of Soviet Azerbaijan.
The present conflict began in 1988 when the Karabakh Armenians demanded that Karabakh be transferred from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia.
The conflict escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s.
The current clash took place north of this disputed territory.
Azerbaijan says heavy fighting is continuing in Tovuz district, bordering on Tavush in north-eastern Armenia.
Both sides accuse each other of shelling civilian areas on the border.
By Ana Dumbadze
Source: apnews.com