YEREVAN, September 28. /TASS/. Fighting continued in the Nagorno-Karabakh region overnight into Monday, Armenian Defense Ministry Spokesman Artsrun Ovannisyan wrote on Facebook.
"Military activities continued throughout the night, our Armed Forces achieved significant success, but there has been no lull in the fighting, hostilities go on, particularly involving artillery shelling," he pointed out, refuting Azerbaijan’s reports of Armenia’s military losses.
At the same time, the Armenian government’s information center said on Monday that 31 military servicemen from the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic had been killed in combat since September 27.
On September 27, Baku said that Armenia had shelled the Azerbaijani army’s positions and Yerevan, in turn, claimed that Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces had launched an offensive towards Nagorno-Karabakh, shelling regional settlements, including the capital, Stepanakert. Both parties reported casualties, including civilian casualties. The Armenian authorities declared martial law and announced a mobilization. Azerbaijan also declared martial law.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.