Russia rejects bid to include Turkey in Nagorno-Karabakh mediation

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that no changes were envisaged to the format for peace talks over Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan proposed that its ally Turkey should be involved.

Mr Lavrov was speaking to reporters in Moscow after talks with Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan.

Mr Mnatsakanyan said that effective peace talks over Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely ethnic Armenian-populated enclave within Azerbaijan, would only be possible after a full ceasefire between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces.

Russia on Monday urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to immediately start observing a ceasefire agreed over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as intense fighting between the two Caucasus rivals cast fresh doubt over the accord.

After 11 hours of talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Moscow, the two sides agreed early on Saturday to a humanitarian truce. But repeated clashes have so far made a mockery of the truce deal, with both sides on Monday accusing the other of repeated violations.

"We expect that the decisions that have been adopted will be rigorously observed by both parties," said Mr Lavrov in Moscow after hosting his Armenian counterpart Zohrab Mnatsakanyan.

He said the truce – whose immediate aim was to exchange prisoners and the bodies of people killed – had to be implemented on the ground and work was underway to ensure verification mechanisms were in place.

Mr Lavrov said he believed the "all-night vigil" that clinched the ceasefire would "not be in vain" and that the issue could be resolved on the ground "in the nearest time".

Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces accused each other on Monday of launching new attacks in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, continuing the heaviest fighting over the enclave for more than 25 years.

Analysts have long warned that Nagorno-Karabakh was the most combustible of the frozen conflicts left over after the fall of the Soviet Union, with Azerbaijan vowing to regain control of the territory and Armenians insisting they would never cede ground.

Azerbaijan said its military positions had been shelled overnight. Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated and governed by ethnic Armenians, said its forces had repelled Azeri army attacks.

The Azerbaijani defence ministry accused Armenian forces of flouting a ceasefire agreement negotiated in marathon talks overseen by Russia in Moscow last week.

"Armenian armed forces, which did not comply with the humanitarian truce, repeatedly tried to attack the positions of the Azerbaijan army," the ministry said.

It said it had destroyed a "large number of enemy forces" as well as one T-72 tank and three Grad multiple-rocket launchers.

Armenian defence ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan said Azerbaijan was "now intensively shelling the southern front".

Armenia claimed that "the adversary suffered great losses of manpower and military equipment" but provided no details.

Both sides exchanged accusations of intensive shelling of civilian areas and escalating two weeks of fierce clashes.

The ceasefire had already been badly frayed on Sunday, when Azerbaijan said it launched air strikes against an Armenian regiment, after what it said was an Armenian rocket attack on a civilian apartment building.

Armenia denied both Azeri assertions.

The talks were the first diplomatic contact between the two former Soviet republics since fighting over the mountain enclave broke out on September 27. About 500 people have been reported killed since then.

The conflict has raised fears of a wider war drawing in Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia.

The renewed fighting is the worst since a 1994 ceasefire ended a war over Nagorno-Karabakh that killed at least 30,000. It has also raised concerns about the security of pipelines in Azerbaijan that carry Azeri natural gas and oil to Europe.