Armenia PM visits wounded soldiers in hospital

Armenia's prime minister on Friday visited a military hospital where he met with soldiers wounded in the country's conflict with Azerbaijan over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to a statement issued by the prime minister's press office. On Saturday, rocket and artillery barrage hit residential areas hours after the United States hosted top diplomats from Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on settling their decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The heavy shelling forced residents of Stepanakert, the regional capital of self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, into shelters, as emergency teams rushed to extinguish fires.Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said other towns in the region were also targeted by Azerbaijani artillery fire.There was no immediate information about casualties.Officials in Azerbaijan claimed that the town of Terter and areas in the Gubadli region came under Armenian shelling early Saturday, killing a teenager.

They said that another 13-year-old boy died Saturday of wounds he received in an earlier shelling of Ganja, Azerbaijan's second-largest city.Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian government since 1994 at the end of a separatist war following the breakup of the Soviet Union three years earlier.

The current fighting that started Sept. 27 marks the worst escalation in the conflict since the war’s end.After two failed attempts by Russia to broker a truce, the U.S. waded onto the scene on Friday, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hosting the Armenian and Azerbaijan foreign ministers for separate talks.

(Image Credit: AP) 

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