UN warns Armenia, Azerbaijan: Attacks on civilians may be war crimes

The United Nations (UN)’s human rights chief has urged Armenia and Azerbaijan not to target towns, schools, and hospitals in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, saying striking civilians would constitute war crimes.

As fierce clashes continued along the front-lines of a conflict that has so far killed more than 1,200 people, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet reiterated on Monday that indiscriminate attacks on populated areas in and around the conflict zone contravened international humanitarian law.

Bachelet said in a statement that both Armenia and Azerbaijan had ignored repeated calls to avoid targeting civilian areas and infrastructure. “Instead, homes have been destroyed, streets reduced to rubble, and people forced to flee or seek safety in basements,” she said.

“Such attacks must stop and those responsible for carrying them out, or ordering them, must be held to account,” Bachelet said.

Pointing to the figures released by both sides of the conflict, she said nearly 40,000 Azeris had been temporarily displaced in the latest fighting and some 90,000 ethnic Armenians had fled Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

The development came as Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh continued accusing each other of shelling residential areas just hours after they agreed in Geneva on Friday to avoid the deliberate targeting of civilians.

International rights groups have also blamed both warring parties of using banned cluster munitions, most recently the Armenian side in the shelling of the Azeri city of Barda last Wednesday.

Armenian PM alleges presence of ‘foreign mercenaries’

Meanwhile, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called for a probe into the presence of “foreign mercenaries” in Nagorno-Karabakh after ethnic Armenian forces claimed they had captured two militants from Syria.

Pashinyan said in a Facebook post that the involvement of “foreign mercenaries” was “a threat not only to the security of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia but also to international security and this issue should become a subject of international investigation.”

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh — referred to as the Artsakh Defense Army — had captured two Syrian militants over the weekend, one from Idlib Province and the other from Hama.

Azerbaijan’s presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev, however, rejected those allegations.

A Nagorno-Karabakh defense ministry spokesman also reported ferocious clashes along parts of the front-line on Monday, adding that it had repelled an Azeri platoon. He also confirmed that a deputy commander in the Artsakh army had been killed in battle.

Armenian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan further said artillery fire had killed one civilian and wounded two in the country’s southern Syunik region.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry, on the other hand, declared it had repelled an attack on its positions in the high ground of the Zangilan district, between the enclave and the Iranian border, while army units in the Gazakh, Tovuz, and Dashkesan regions also came under fire.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev further stated in a Twitter post that Azerbaijan had retaken eight more settlements in Zangilan, Gubadli, and Jabrayil regions.

Putin holds phone discussions with Armenian PM, Azeri president

The Kremlin, meanwhile, announced in a Monday statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin had discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh fighting in phone calls with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on November 1 and with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on November 2.

“The issues of settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have been discussed in detail,” said the statement, without elaborating.

The talks came after the Azerbaijani president said on Sunday there was no reason for Russia to intervene in the ongoing conflict between his country and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh as Baku had “no plan” to conduct military operations against Armenia.

Aliyev rejects Russia’s possible intervention in Karabakh conflict as 'Azerbaijan fights on own land'

The Azerbaijani president says there is no reason for Russia to intervene in Karabakh’s conflict as Azerbaijan fights on its own land.

Since September 27, a new wave of clashes, the worst in decades, has been going on between Azeri troops and the Armenian-backed separatists of the breakaway region, with both Yerevan and Baku accusing each other of provocation.

The contested region, home to ethnic Armenian people, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it has been under the control of Armenian-backed separatists since the early 1990s after they seized it by military force.

Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed, including many civilians, since the onset of the fierce clashes, with the international community repeatedly calling on both warring sides to agree to an immediate and unconditional truce. Four ceasefire attempts have so far failed.

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