(Al Jazeera Media Network) Azerbaijan says it has launched “anti-terrorist operations” in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and demanded the “complete withdrawal” of ethnic Armenian forces as a condition for peace in the disputed territory.
Armenia’s foreign ministry urged Russian peacekeeping troops there to intervene and stop Azerbaijan’s “full-scale aggression” against the local population.
Azerbaijan said it opened humanitarian routes for non-combatants.
The offensive comes nearly three years after Baku fought a brief but deadly war with Armenian forces over the mountainous area. The ex-Soviet Caucasus rivals have been locked in a decades-long dispute with large-scale hostilities breaking out in the 1990s and in 2020.