Armenia and Azerbaijan said heavy fighting is continuing in their conflict over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan's second largest city Gandja is "under fire" from Armenian forces, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on Sunday, with the Nagorno-Karbakh authorities saying they had destroyed a military airport there. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan's president said late on Saturday that his troops had taken a village. Fighting that started Sept. 27 is some of the worst to afflict Nagorno-Karabakh since the end of a 1994 war that left the region in Azerbaijan under the control of ethnic Armenian forces. Armenian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanian said intensive fighting was "taking place along the entire front line" on Saturday and that Armenian forces had shot down three planes. Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry denied any planes being shot down and said Armenian personnel had shelled civilian territory. Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said his country's army "raised the flag" in the village of Madagiz. Nagorno-Karabakh officials have said more than 150 servicemen on their side have been killed so far. Azerbaijani authorities haven't given details on their military casualties but said 19 civilians were killed and 55 more wounded. Vahram Poghosyan, a spokesman for Nagorno-Karabakh's president, claimed Saturday on Facebook that intelligence data showed some 3,000 Azerbaijanis have died in the fighting, but did not give details. Nagorno-Karabakh was a designated autonomous region within Azerbaijan during the Soviet era. It claimed independence from Azerbaijan in 1991, about three months before the Soviet Union's collapse. A full-scale war that broke out in 1992 killed an estimated 30,000 people. By the time the war ended in 1994, Armenian forces not only held Nagorno-Karabakh itself but substantial areas outside the territory's formal borders, including Madagiz, the village Azerbaijan claimed to have taken Saturday. Several United Nations Security Council resolutions have called for withdrawal from those areas, which the Armenian forces have disregarded. Aliyev said in a television interview the Armenians must withdraw from those areas before the latest fighting can stop. Armenia has repeatedly claimed over the past week that Turkey sent Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan and that the Turkish military is aiding Azerbaijan's. "Turkey and Azerbaijan are pursuing not only military-political goals," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said Saturday in an address to his nation. "Their goal is Armenia, their goal is continuation of the genocide of Armenians." Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry released a statement Saturday alleging that thousands of ethnic Armenians from abroad were being deployed or recruited to fight for Armenia. "Armenia and Armenian Diaspora organizations bear international legal liability for organizing these terrorist activities," the statement said. — Euronews
