Yerevan, Nov. 3, (dpa/GNA) – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Monday that his country’s military had taken control of eight more villages in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“Long live Azerbaijan’s armed forces,” Aliyev said in a statement on Twitter, adding: “Karabakh is Azerbaijan!”
The Nagorno-Karabakh region has been largely controlled by Christian Armenian troops for decades but is considered by the United Nations as part of predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan.
More than 1,100 people have been reported killed in the flare-up in fighting, which began more than a month ago, in late September.
It has been the bloodiest fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia since they fought a war in the late 1980s and early 1990s as they transitioned into independent countries amid the Soviet dissolution.
Armenia has accused NATO member state Turkey of participating in the fighting on the side of Azerbaijan.
Turkey has said it would support its close ally Azerbaijan by all means necessary but has denied direct involvement in the fighting.
GNA