Azerbaijan frees 8 more villages from Armenia

ANKARA

The Azerbaijani army has liberated eight more villages from Armenian occupation, Azerbaijan’s president announced on Wednesday.

“Azerbaijan’s glorious Army has liberated Garadaghli, Khatunbulag, Garakollu villages of Fuzuli district, and Bulutan, Melikjanli, Kemertuk, Teke and Tagaser villages of Khojavend district. Long live Azerbaijan’s Army! Karabakh is Azerbaijan!” Ilham Aliyev said on Twitter.

In Azerbaijani army's operation responding to Armenian forces' occupation, Cebrail, Hadrut, and more than 30 villages were previously liberated.

Prosecutors in Azerbaijan said in a statement on Tuesday that 42 Azerbaijani civilians died and 206 civilians were wounded due to the Armenian attacks on Sept. 27-Oct. 13.

One more Azerbaijani national was killed by Armenian forces on Wednesday, bringing the civilian death toll in Armenian attacks to 43.

The clashes began on Sept. 27 when Armenian forces targeted civilian Azerbaijani settlements and military positions in the region, leading to casualties.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.

Some 20% of Azerbaijan's territory has remained under illegal Armenian occupation for some three decades.

The two states had made a humanitarian cease-fire decision, which envisaged the exchange of funerals and prisoners in Upper Karabakh, effective from noon on Oct. 10, during the trilateral meeting of Russian, Azerbaijani, and Armenian foreign ministers held in Moscow.

But Armenian forces on Oct. 11 launched a missile strike on Azerbaijan's second-largest city Ganja -- although the region is outside the frontline zone -- resulting in 10 civilian casualties and injuring 35.