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Death Toll Rises to 95 in Karabakh Clash despite Calls for Calm

On Monday, intense fighting raged between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces, prompting regional power Turkey's bellicose rhetoric amid international calls for a halt to fighting between long-time enemies.

For decades, Yerevan and Baku were locked in a territorial dispute over the Nagorny Karabakh ethnic Armenian area, with deadly battles flaring up last July and in 2016, reports AFP.

After a war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives but was not recognized by any country, including Armenia, the region declared independence from Azerbaijan and is still considered part of Azerbaijan by the international community.

"On Monday evening, Azerbaijani forces launched a" massive offensive in the southern and north-eastern sectors of the Karabakh frontline, "Artsrun Hovhannisyan, Armenia's defence ministry spokesman, said. 

The defence ministry of Karabakh said 26 more of its soldiers were killed late on Monday, taking the total military casualties of the rebels to 84.

The cumulative death toll has risen to 95, including 11 civilian deaths: 9 in Azerbaijan and 2 on the Armenian side.

There were no military casualties confirmed by Azerbaijan, but Armenian separatist officials released footage showing burnt-out armoured vehicles and the bloodied and charred remains of camouflaged soldiers, claimed to be Azerbaijani troops.

Battle between the majority-Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Armenia might include Russia and Turkey as regional players.

Russia, which has a military alliance with Armenia and stations there a permanent military base, sells sophisticated weapons worth billions of dollars to both Baku and Yerevan.

Armenia has accused Turkey -- which backs Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan -- of meddling in the conflict.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday ordered partial military mobilisation and General Mais Barkhudarov vowed to "fight to the last drop of blood in order to completely destroy the enemy and win".

With each side blaming the other for the flare-up, as fears of a full-scale war grow, world leaders have urged calm.

The UN Security Council was expected to hold emergency talks in Karabakh behind closed doors at the request of Germany and France on Tuesday, diplomats told AFP.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was monitoring the situation closely and that the current priority was to "stop the hostilities, not to deal with who is right and who is wrong".

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded Armenia end its "occupation" of Karabakh.

"The time has come for the crisis in the region that started with the occupation of Nagorny Karabakh to be put to an end," Erdogan said.

"Now Azerbaijan must take matters into its own hands."

- Mercenaries from Syria -

Armenia has accused Turkey of sending mercenaries to back Azerbaijan.

War Monitor On Monday, Turkey said it has sent at least 300 northern Syrian proxies to join Azerbaijani forces.

In exchange for salaries of up to $2,000, Turkey told the fighters that they would be tasked with 'guarding border regions' in Azerbaijan, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain.

The report comes after regional powers have been warned by the European Union not to intervene in the fighting and have condemned a 'significant escalation' affecting regional stability.

France , Germany, Italy and the United States, in addition to the EU and Russia, have urged a ceasefire.

Shushan Stepanyan, spokeswoman for the Armenian defence ministry, said Armenian separatist forces had won back positions taken by Azerbaijan on Sunday.

But Baku claimed further advances.

Azerbaijani forces "are striking enemy positions... and have taken several strategic positions around the village of Talysh", the defence ministry said.

"The enemy is retreating," it added, accusing separatist forces of shelling civilian targets in the town of Terter.

- 'We are not afraid of war' -

The escalation has stirred an outpouring of patriotic fervour in both countries.

"We have been waiting for this day for so long. The fighting must not stop until we force Armenia to return our lands," Vidadi Alekperov, a 39-year-old waiter in Baku, told AFP.

"I'll happily go to the battlefield."

In Yerevan, 67-year-old Vardan Harutyunyan said Armenia had been anticipating the attack.

"The (Karabakh) question can only be resolved militarily. We are not afraid of a war," he said.

Martial law and military mobilisation were announced by Armenia and Karabakh on Sunday, while Azerbaijan enforced military rule and a curfew in major cities.

Conflict settlement negotiations — one of the worst to emerge from the Soviet Union 's breakdown in 1991 — have largely failed since the 1994 ceasefire agreement.

Analysts told AFP that attempts to avoid an even worse escalation needed to be stepped up by foreign brokers.

As the 'Minsk Party', France, Russia and the United States have negotiated peace efforts, but the last significant attempt for a peace agreement failed in 2010.

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