Armenia, Azerbaijan announce humanitarian truce
Armenia and Azerbaijan said on Saturday that they had decided to a "humanitarian truce" from midnight (2000 GMT) in a new attempt to quell nearly three weeks of fighting over a disputed region.
The ceasefire seeking to end extreme clashes over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region went into effect after a significant escalation that saw a missile strike kill 13 people including small children in the Azerbaijani city of Ganja.
It is the warring sides' second try to declare a ceasefire to quell the fighting that has killed hundreds of men and women since Sept 27.
Armenia and Azerbaijan had last Saturday agreed to a ceasefire after 11 hours of talks mediated by Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, but then both accused one another of violating the offer.
"The Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan have agreed to a humanitarian truce by Oct 18, 0000h local time," Armenia's foreign ministry said late on Saturday.
Azerbaijan's foreign ministry confirmed the move around in an identical statement.
Vahram Poghosyan, the spokesman for the Karabakh separatist leader, told AFP: "We will halt fire along the entire front from midnight."
He said that if Azerbaijan observed the truce Karabakh authorities would "open a humanitarian corridor" for Azerbaijan troops encircled by the separatist army.
"The situation at the front end has calmed," Poghosyan separately said on Facebook.
The latest announcement came after Russia's Lavrov held phone talks along with his counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan and stressed "the necessity to strictly follow" the ceasefire deal agreed in Moscow last Saturday, the foreign ministry said.
The ministers also confirmed the importance of beginning "substantive" foretells settle the conflict, the ministry in Moscow said.
French President Emmanuel Macron "welcomed" the humanitarian truce, the Elysee said in a statement.
"This ceasefire should be unconditional and strictly respected by both parties," added the French presidency.
The latest try to halt fighting came after Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev vowed to take revenge on Armenia after a missile strike killed 13 persons including small children in the metropolis of Ganja.
The early hour's attack, which also saw a strike on the close by strategic city of Mingecevir, came hours after Azerbaijani forces shelled Stepanakert, the administrative center of the ethnic Armenian separatist region.
The explosions in Ganja leveled a row of houses and left a lot more than 45 people injured within an attack Aliyev referred to as "a war crime."
He said his army would "take revenge on the battlefield" and promised to fully capture Karabakh by driving out Armenian forces "like dogs."
Prosecutors said that as the result of the attack on Ganjia 13 people died including small kids.
An AFP team in Ganja saw rows of houses considered rubble by the strike, which shattered walls and ripped roofs off buildings in the encompassing streets.
People ran outside in shock and tears, stumbling through dark muddy alleys within their slippers, some wearing bathroom robes, and pajamas.
"We were sleeping and suddenly we heard the blast. The entranceway, glass, everything shattered over us," said Durdana Mammadova, 69, who was simply standing on the road at daybreak because her house was destroyed.
Nagorno-Karabakh's military said for its part that Azerbaijani forces had stepped up their attacks on Friday over the front, shelling Stepanakert and a nearby town.
On Saturday, Karabakh separatist leader Arayik Harutyunyan said before the truce took effect that "intensive fighting" continued "along with the complete type of defense."
The tit-for-tat attacks have so far undermined international efforts to calm a resurgence of fighting between Christian Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis and avoid drawing regional powers Russia and Turkey into a conflict that has already killed a huge selection of people.
The EU previously Saturday condemned the strike on Ganja and said the initial ceasefire deal "must be fully respected immediately."
"EUROPE deplores the strikes on the Azerbaijani city of Ganja," said a spokesperson for EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell
"All targeting of civilians and civilian installations by either party must stop."
Turkey, a staunch ally of Azerbaijan and widely accused of supplying mercenaries to bolster Baku's forces, said the strikes were a war crime and called on the international community to denounce them.
Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region of Azerbaijan mainly inhabited by ethnic Armenians and backed by Yerevan, has been the scene of deadly clashes since Sept 27.
According to the official, but partial, toll a lot more than 700 people have already been killed in the clashes.
The mountainous western region of Azerbaijan has remained under separatist Armenian control since a 1994 ceasefire ended a brutal war that killed 30,000. - AFP
