BAKU, October 11. /TASS/. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has called a missile attack on the city of Ganja from Armenian territory a war crime.
"Armenia has blatantly violated the ceasefire regime and launched a missile attack on innocent residents in the city of Ganja. This is a war crime and gross violation of the Geneva Conventions," the head of state wrote on his Twitter page on Sunday. He also stated that "it is a disrespect to the negotiations under Russia’s mediation."
He noted that the missile attack was initiated from the territory of Armenia’s Vardenis district. "These heinous actions can never break the will of the Azerbaijani people!" his statement said.
Azerbaijan’s office of Prosecutor General reported that nine people were killed and 34 wounded during the strike on Ganja.
At the talks, mediated by Russia and held in Moscow on October 9, Azerbaijan and Armenia had agreed on a ceasefire. It came into effect at 12.00 local time on Saturday, October 10 for humanitarian reasons, in order to trade detainees and recover the bodies of those killed in fighting.
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 over 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.