YEREVAN, October 23. /TASS/. The Azeri Armed Forces have launched an artillery strike on the city of Martakert and a number of villages in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the information center under the Armenian cabinet said Friday.
"As a result of an artillery strike on the city of Martakert, two blocks in a multi-unit apartment building burned down. According to preliminary data, the assailant opened fire in this direction using Grad [multiple rocket] launchers. At dawn, the villages of Karmir Shuka and Taghavard were also struck. The artillery shelling continues. There are no human losses," the statement reads.
Meanwhile, the Azeri Defense Ministry has denied this information from Yerevan. "The information disseminated by Armenia about an alleged shelling of the communities <…> in Nagorno-Karabakh is unfounded and false. The Azeri army does not attack civilian population and infrastructure," the ministry said in a statement.
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.
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.
Moscow brokered a humanitarian ceasefire that took effect at 12 noon local time on October 10 but was violated. Later, the foreign ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan announced plans to declare another ceasefire at midnight on October 18, but the hostilities continue and the warring parties keep blaming each other for violating the truce.