Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of swiftly and seriously violating the terms of a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, raising questions about how meaningful the Russia-brokered truce will turn out to be.
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The ceasefire, clinched after marathon talks in Moscow advocated by President Vladimir Putin, was meant to halt fighting to allow ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forces to swap prisoners and war dead.
The Moscow talks were the first diplomatic contact between the two since fighting over the mountainous enclave erupted on September 27, killing hundreds of people.
The enclave is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.
Within minutes of the truce taking effect from noon on Saturday, both sides accused each other of breaking it.
The Armenian defence ministry accused Azerbaijan of shelling a settlement inside Armenia, while ethnic Armenian forces in Karabakh alleged Azeri forces had launched a new offensive five minutes after the truce took hold and killed two civilians.
Azerbaijan said enemy forces in Karabakh were shelling Azeri territory and one civilian had been killed.
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev told Russia's RBC news outlet the warring parties were now trying to find a political settlement but suggested more fighting was ahead.
"We'll go to the very end and get what rightfully belongs to us," he said.
Azeri Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said the truce would last only for as long as it took for the Red Cross to arrange the exchange of the dead.
Speaking at a briefing in Baku, he said Azerbaijan hoped and expected to take control of more territory in time.
Armenia's foreign ministry said it was using all diplomatic channels to try to support the truce, while Nagorno-Karabakh's foreign ministry accused Azerbaijan of using ceasefire talks as cover to ready military action.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who had mediated over 10 hours of talks, said the ceasefire had been agreed on humanitarian grounds.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it stood ready to facilitate the handover of bodies of those killed in action and the simultaneous release of detainees.
Lavrov said Armenia and Azerbaijan had also agreed to enter into substantive peace talks under the auspices of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Minsk Group. The group is co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States.
Australian Associated Press