Azerbaijan says it seized Nagorno-Karabakh’s 2nd-largest city
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday his country’s forces had taken Shusha, the second-largest city in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Armenian officials immediately denied the claim.
If accurate, this would be a major strategic victory over the region’s ethnic-Armenian separatists.
“With great pride and joy, I inform you that the town of Shusha has been liberated,” Aliyev said in a televised address to the nation, as Armenian officials reported that “heavy fighting” for the city continues.
Aliyev said November 8 would “go down in the history of the Azerbaijani people” as the day “we returned to Shusha”.
In the capital Baku, Azeris gathered in large numbers to celebrate, waving flags and chanting slogans while drivers sounded their car horns.
The city and surrounding areas have seen fierce fighting in recent days as Azerbaijani forces seek to make further gains six weeks after new clashes broke out over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The city, called Shushi by Armenians, is of cultural and strategic importance to both sides and is located 15km (9 miles) south of the enclave’s largest city, Stepanakert.
‘Unattainable pipe dream’
At least 1,000 people have died in nearly six weeks of fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians.
Shortly before Aliyev’s announcement, the Armenian government said on Twitter that “heavy and decisive fighting continues for Shushi” and called the taking of the town “an unattainable pipe dream for Azerbaijan”.
“Over the night, the most ferocious combat has unfolded in the vicinity of Shushi,” Armenian defence ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan said. “Despite heavy destruction, the fortress city withstands the blows of the adversary.”
Armenian defence ministry official Artsrun Hovhannisyan said the battle for the city was ongoing, adding “wait and believe in our army”.
A wounded child is taken to a hospital after Armenian forces hit the city centre of Azerbaijan’s Barda last month [Arif Hudaverdi Yaman/ Anadolu]Bloodiest fighting
Emboldened by Turkish support, Azerbaijan has the upper hand in the bloodiest fighting in more than 25 years in the South Caucasus. In just over a month, it has retaken much of the land in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that it lost in a previous war over the territory in the 1990s.
The city could serve as a key staging post for an Azeri assault on the enclave’s largest city, Stepanakert. Both have come under heavy shelling in recent days. Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said allegations it had shelled civilian areas were “misinformation”.
Nagorno-Karabakh is within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since 1994. The latest outbreak of fighting started on September 27 and has left hundreds – if not thousands – dead.
Aliyev vowed to continue the fighting until Armenia withdraws from the territory.
“Our liberation march continues. We will go to the end, until the complete liberation of the occupied territories,” Aliyev said.
Fighting has continued despite several attempts by Russia, France and the United States to help reach a lasting ceasefire. The three countries make up the “Minsk Group” of mediators that helped broker a truce between the ex-Soviet rivals in 1994, but have failed to find a lasting solution to the long-simmering conflict.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have each accused the other of targeting civilian areas during the fighting and the United Nations last week decried indiscriminate attacks that could amount to “war crimes”.
The fighting has raised fears that both Russia, which has a military alliance with Armenia, and Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey could be further drawn into the conflict.