Azerbaijan said on Tuesday its armed forces had launched what it called “local anti-terrorist activities” in the Nagorno-Karabakh region to restore constitutional order by disarming and forcing the withdrawal of Armenian military formations there.
Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, has an overwhelmingly ethnic Armenian population and broke from Baku’s control in the early 1990s after a war. Azerbaijan recaptured swathes of land in and around it in a 2020 war.
Stepanakert now… pic.twitter.com/2G8X6VO8my
— Marut Vanyan (@marutvanian) September 19, 2023
Azerbaijan’s defence ministry spoke in a statement of its intention to “disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of Armenia’s armed forces from our territories, (and) neutralise their military infrastructure”.
#BREAKING War has begun in Karabakh.
Destruction of Armenian Tor air defense system in Khankendi. pic.twitter.com/omxCbLQkAc
— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 19, 2023
It said it was only targeting legitimate military targets using what it called high-precision weapons and not civilians or civilian infrastructure as part of what it called a drive to “restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan”.
