Risk of 'full-scale war' in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region

A Nagorno-Karabakh soldier in the town of Martakert, where clashes with Azeri forces are taking place, in Nagorno-Karabakh region Credit: Reuters

Armenia’s president has warned an outbreak of fighting in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region could lead to “full-scale war”.

A third day of fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed separatists has seen soldiers killed on both sides, in the most intense violence in the area in years.

The former Soviet states Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war over the territory in the early 1990s, ending in a fragile truce in 1994.

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

The region lies within Azerbaijan’s borders; a mountainous enclave with a large ethnic Armenian population.

There has been a long-festering ethnic conflict between the mainly Muslim Azeris and their Christian Armenian neighbours.

Azeri soldiers as they fire a cannon at Armenian fighters in the conflict in the early 1990s. Credit: Reuters

Tensions flared in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union disintegrated, and with help from Armenia, the region's ethnic Armenians tried to throw off rule from Azerbaijan.

By the time of the 1994 ceasefire, they had pushed Azeri forces out of almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh and taken control of surrounding districts.

Recent outbreak of fighting

The ceasefire was broken sporadically by the occasional outbreak of violence, but the fighting in the past few days has been the most intense in years.

Both sides have blamed the other for starting it, and both sides attacked each other with tanks, helicopters, missiles and artillery. Each claim to have captured small bits of territory from the other.

Azerbaijan's defence ministry said three of its soldiers were killed on Monday, while a representative of Nagorno-Karabakh's separatist leadership said four of its military personnel had died.

An Armenian volunteer in the town of Askeran, near where clashes with Azeri forces are taking place, in Nagorno-Karabakh region Credit: Reuters

Geopolitical factors

A return to war would destabilise a region that is a crossroads for strategically-important oil and gas pipelines. It could also drag in the big regional powers, Russia and Turkey. Moscow has a defence alliance with Armenia, while Ankara backs Azerbaijan.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said a statement by Ankara strongly supporting Azerbaijan was one-sided.

Following the violence, France, Russia and the US - joint mediators in the conflict - called on both sides to stop fighting. Envoys from the three are to meet in Vienna tomorrow for talks on the latest fighting.