YEREVAN, October 3. /TASS/. The scale of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh is unprecedented, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in his address to the nation aired live by local television channels on Saturday.
"It is already a week since Armenians in Artsakh (the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh) have been resisting the Azerbaijani-Turkish terrorist attack. The adversary’s attacks are on such a scale that, according to military experts’ words, nothing like them has often taken place in other parts of the world in the 21st century, since hundreds of tanks and armored infantry fighting vehicles, dozens of planes, hundreds of drones and tens of thousands of infantrymen are attacking the frontiers of the army defending Artsakh," he emphasized.
Armenia has obtained the intelligence information that around 150 high-ranking Turkish military officers, who are deployed to various command centers along the entire frontline, are fighting for Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinyan said.
"According to our military, besides Azerbaijani units, Syrian combatants and terrorists alongside commandoes of the Turkish Armed Forces are taking part in the attacks. According to our information, about 150 senior military officers are present at command centers of Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces running the military operations," he said.
Fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh has created massive casualties both among the troops and civilians, but Azerbaijan has failed to achieve any strategic objectives,Pashinyan said.
"It is already a week since the army of Artsakh’s defense (the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh) and our volunteer units have been fighting to save the sacred land of Artsakh. We have suffered multiple civilian and military casualties, but the adversary has never been able to solve a single strategic task. Our soldiers and militia spare no effort and demonstrate unprecedented examples of heroism," he said.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July. Azerbaijan and Armenia have imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict have reported casualties, among them civilians.
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.