BAKU, September 28. /TASS/. Azerbaijan’s president has signed a decree ordering a partial military mobilization. The decree has been published on the president’s website.

"Pursuant to Paragraph 25 of Article 109 of the Constitution, I hereby order a partial military mobilization in Azerbaijan," the document reads.

The president particularly ordered the State Service for Mobilization and Draft "to mobilize military reservists and take measures to achieve goals in terms of military transportation."

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.