BAKU (Sputnik) — Azerbaijan does not recognize the ethnically Armenian self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) and considers the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army to be a part of the Armed Forces of Armenia.
"The Defense Ministry says that Armenian armed forces, using heavy machine guns, violated the ceasefire 118 times along various stretches of the frontline in last 24 hours," the ministry’s press service said.
The violence in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated on April 2 last year. Baku and Yerevan accused each other of provoking hostilities that led to multiple deaths on each side. A ceasefire was agreed on several days later on April 5, yet hostilities continued.
The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988, when the autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, before proclaiming independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The warring sides agreed to a cessation of hostilities in 1994.
