Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of
violating a new ceasefire over Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday, as they tried for
the second time in a week to bring a halt to fierce fighting over the disputed
region.
The ex-Soviet neighbours agreed to a new truce from
midnight on Sunday, as international mediators push for a stop to three weeks
of heavy clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region that broke
from Azerbaijan's control in the 1990s.
A previous ceasefire agreed a week ago fell apart
amid mutual accusations and continued fighting that has left hundreds dead and
forced tens of thousands from their homes.
The new ceasefire deal was announced after one of
the deadliest attacks on civilians so far on Saturday, when a missile strike
hit a residential area of Azerbaijan's second city Ganja, killing 13 people
including small children.
The two sides have described the agreement as a
"humanitarian truce" to allow for the exchange of prisoners and
bodies.
But Armenia's defence ministry said Azerbaijani
forces had violated the new ceasefire only minutes after it took effect, firing
artillery shells and rockets in the early hours of Sunday.
Its foreign ministry said Azerbaijan had also
launched an attack in a southern area of the Karabakh frontline
"demonstrating to the international community its treacherous nature,
which we have been dealing with for decades".
Azerbaijan's defence ministry said Armenian forces
had "grossly violated another agreement", accusing them of firing
artillery and mortar shells in various directions and of launching early
morning attacks along the frontline.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a bitter
conflict over Karabakh since Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized
control of the mountainous province in a 1990s war that left 30,000 people
dead.
The region's declaration of independence has not
been recognised by any country, including Armenia, and it is still part of
Azerbaijan under international law.
The fighting that broke out three weeks ago has been
the heaviest since a 1994 ceasefire and has threatened to draw in regional
powers Turkey, which backs Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a military
alliance with Armenia.
An AFP journalist in Karabakh's main city
Stepanakert said the night had been calm on Sunday and that, unlike during
previous days, the sounds of explosions could not be heard coming from
frontline areas.
But after the failure of other ceasefire attempts and
decades of mistrust, there was little hope among city residents that a truce
would take hold.
"Our country is ready to respect the ceasefire
but the others will not... We can't trust them," Sveta Petrosyan, a
65-year-old with two sons at the front, told AFP outside her apartment.
Stepanakert has come under heavy artillery and
rocket fire during the fighting and most of its residents have fled to Armenia.
It was shelled again late on Friday and a few hours
later the missile strike hit Ganja in Azerbaijan, levelling a row of houses and
leaving 13 dead and more than 45 people injured.
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev described the
Ganja attack as a war crime and vowed his army would "take revenge on the
battlefield".
An AFP team in Ganja saw rows of houses turned to
rubble by the strike, which shattered walls and ripped roofs off buildings in
the surrounding streets.
"We were sleeping and suddenly we heard the
blast. The door, glass, everything shattered over us," said Durdana
Mammadova, 69, who was standing on the street at daybreak because her house was
destroyed.
The clashes over Karabakh that erupted on September
27 have left more than 700 dead, including scores of civilians on both sides.
The real death toll is probably much higher, as most
of the deaths have been reported among Armenian separatist forces and
Azerbaijan has not released any figures on its military casualties.
Both sides claim to have inflicted heavy losses.
Azerbaijan says it has retaken significant territory in areas along the
frontline. Armenian forces dispute these claims but have admitted to some
setbacks.
It is unclear what set off the latest round of
fighting but Armenia has accused Turkey of encouraging longtime ally Azerbaijan
to launch an offensive to retake Nagorno-Karabakh. Ankara has also been accused
of supplying Syrian fighters as mercenaries to bolster Baku's forces.