By Zulfugar Agayev and Sara Khojoyan

Armenians and Azeris said that a cease-fire is largely holding after dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed in the fiercest fighting for two decades over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan is “seriously” abiding by the truce though its forces fired 120 times in response to 115 Armenian violations that included artillery strikes in the past 24 hours the Defense Ministry in Baku said Wednesday on its website. The cease-fire was “mainly observed” overnight the Defense Ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic which is not internationally recognized said in a website statement.

Azerbaijan said 31 of its servicemen and four civilians died in the clashes that broke out April 1 while Nagorno-Karabakh said that 29 Armenian soldiers died and 101 were wounded. Both sides agreed on a truce from noon Tuesday after a unilateral cease-fire declared by Azerbaijan on Sunday didn’t hold.

The spiralling violence over the Armenian-controlled enclave in Azerbaijan sparked international alarm amid the largest loss of life since a Russian-brokered truce 22 years ago. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan warned on Monday that escalation in the conflict could trigger a “full-scale war” threatening to destabilize a region flanked by Russia Turkey and Iran. Fighting between Armenia a Russian ally and Azerbaijan which has stronger ties to NATO member Turkey would also potentially disrupt a new energy corridor between central Asia and Europe.

Merkel Mediators

Sargsyan travels to Germany on Wednesday for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who is also chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The OSCE’s Minsk Group which is charged with resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute called for the cease-fire to be “sustained and respected” at a meeting in Vienna to discuss the conflict on Tuesday.

U.S. Russian and French OSCE mediators will visit Armenia on April 9 for talks with Sargsyan and Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandyan the Armenian Foreign Ministry in Yerevan said on Tuesday. Nalbandyan will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Friday the Interfax news service reported Wednesday.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will travel to Yerevan on Thursday and Baku on Friday the RIA Novosti news service reported while Lavrov is due to visit the Azeri capital on Thursday. President Vladimir Putin called Sargsyan and Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev to express his “serious concerns over large-scale military clashes” and to urge a complete halt to the hostilities the Kremlin said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday.

The conflict dates back to the dying days of the Soviet Union when a dispute over the territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared into a war that killed 30000 and created a million refugees. Armenians took over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions districts from Azerbaijan in the 1991-1994 conflict.

OSCE mediators have failed to negotiate a lasting peace since then. Armenia says the enclave’s Christian Armenians who declared independence from largely-Muslim Azerbaijan in 1991 have the right to self-determination. Azerbaijan demands respect for its territorial integrity.

BP Plc said Monday that the fighting hasn’t affected operations at its oil pipeline that carried 720000 barrels per day from Baku to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan last year.

Bloomberg