Heavy losses as fighting rages

Azerbaijani and Armenian forces claimed to have inflicted heavy losses as fighting raged for a third day yesterday over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh.

Renewed US calls echoed by Germany and Russia for a halt to the fierce clashes that erupted Sunday went unheeded by the ex-Soviet rivals that have been locked for decades in a territorial dispute.

The UN Security Council was scheduled to meet yesterday for emergency talks on the military escalation over the ethnic Armenian region, where the intense fighting has caused nearly 100 confirmed deaths.

Both sides said fighting was continuing yesterday, despite urgent international pleas for a ceasefire.

In bellicose televised remarks, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev vowed to continue fighting.

"If the international community is not capable of stopping Armenia's reckless dictator, then Azerbaijan will do it," he declared.

The Armenian defence ministry said separatists in Karabakh had repelled Azerbaijani attacks along the frontline and that "the enemy suffered serious losses in manpower".

It said Azerbaijan's military had suffered major losses since the clashes erupted, with nearly 50 drones and six helicopters downed, and 80 tanks destroyed.

While accusing Azerbaijan of escalating the conflict, Armenia threatened to use longer-range weapons with greater destructive power.

In Baku, officials dismissed claims by the separatists that Armenian-backed troops had regained control of territory they lost in Sunday's fighting.

Azerbaijan said its military had repelled an Armenian counterattack and destroyed an Armenian motorised column and an artillery unit and, later, an entire motorised infantry regiment.

Its forces "continued an offensive on the city of Fizuli," in the Karabakh region, "destroying four enemy tanks and an armoured vehicle and killing 10 troops," the defence ministry said.

"The enemy... asked for help to evacuate corpses and wounded troops" from the battlefield.