Three years after a war ended in Armenia’s defeat, Azerbaijan launched a military operation yesterday in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is inhabited mainly by Armenians and has been claimed by Yerevan for decades.

About 100 people have lost their lives from the fighting, as a former high-ranking official of the Armenian administration of the breakaway Azeri enclave announced today

About 7,000 residents were also evacuated from the enclave and 16 areas were evacuated, according to the separatists.

For its part, Azerbaijan announced that two civilians had died in the zones under its control.

Azeri president: Military operation will stop if Armenian separatists lay down arms

In his first statements following yesterday’s attack by Azerbaijan on the demilitarized enclave, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev made it clear that the military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh will stop if Armenian separatists “lay down their arms.”

In a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Tuesday, Aliyev said that “anti-terrorist measures will stop if (Armenian separatists) lay down their arms and disarm,” the Azerbaijani presidency said.

According to him, representatives of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh were invited to a dialogue “several times” to discuss “the question of their reintegration” in Azerbaijan, “but they refused.”

Aliyev also noted that the Azeri army launched the operation after the death of “civilians and policemen” in the area yesterday from the explosion of mines and blamed Armenian saboteurs for planting these explosive devices.

He also underlined that the “so-called presidential elections” organized on September 9 by Armenian separatists constituted “the continuation of deliberate provocations against the sovereignty of Azerbaijan” and also provoked this military operation.

However, the Azeri president assured the US Secretary of State that “the civilian population and infrastructure are not targeted, only legitimate military targets are destroyed”.