What happened in the Karabakh conflict zone on November 1 – overview

Overview of events in the zone of the Karabakh conflict during the day of November 1, 2020, according to reports from the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides.

Since September 27, the Azerbaijani and Armenian armies have been conducting fierce battles in the Karabakh conflict zone using armored vehicles, artillery and drones. Several thousand people have already died among the military and civilians on both sides. An armistice was declared three times during this time – on October 10, 18 and 26, but each time it was violated immediately. The parties accuse each other of non-compliance with the ceasefire.

Fights and shelling of territories

Information from Baku:

• Positions of the Azerbaijani army in Tovuz, Gadabay and Gubadli regions of Azerbaijan were shelled from the territory of Berdsk, Chambarak and Goris regions of Armenia. Missiles and artillery were used, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

 • The battles are taking place mainly in the Agderin, Agdam, Khojavend and Gubadli directions of the front, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reports.

• Fighting in Karabakh, overview of the last week. Photo/video

• Op-ed: a look at the Karabakh conflict from the outside – Armenia has missed a chance for compromise

• “Azerbaijan offers Armenians cultural autonomy, and to wipe them off the face of the earth” – Armenian political scientist

 • On November 1, starting at 10:00, the Armenian armed forces subjected to intensive artillery shelling the city of Terter, the village of Shikharkh, the villages of Gapanli, Eskipara, Sahlaabad, as well as the village of Yukhari Kiyameddinli of the Agjabedi region, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reports.

 Information from Yerevan:

 • Azerbaijan is not complying with the Geneva agreements and continues shelling peaceful settlements. In addition to strikes against the cities of Martuni, Shushi and nearby settlements in Karabakh, military aviation is used, the State Service for Emergency Situations of Karabakh reports. 

 • The Azerbaijani army has resumed the offensive, including making an attempt to advance in the Avetaranots-Skhnakh sector, but was thrown back.

 “This is very important news, but not all is great […] There is a war going on, and we must concentrate all our potential,” Artsrun Hovhannisyan, a representative of the Armenian Defense Ministry, wrote on his Facebook page after this:

 • Adviser to the Karabakh President David Babayan denied rumors that the Azerbaijani military fired at the motorcade of Karabakh President Araik Harutyunyan. Information about this appeared in some Telegram channels.

 • Azerbaijan in Shushi has under gunpoint cultural and educational targets, this time the Gevkhar Agha mosque and the technological university were hit, the single information center reports.

 Statements and official visits

 • On the morning of November 1, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu arrived in Baku. A meeting was held with the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

 • Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Facebook that new evidence of the participation of Syrian mercenaries in Azerbaijan’s war against Karabakh will soon appear: “There is an international criminal network, and its exposure cannot go without consequences.”

 • After the prime minister’s report, there were reports that the Karabakh defense army had captured a Syrian mercenary named Yusuf Alaabet al-Hajj.  Press secretary of the President of Karabakh Vahram Poghosyan said that the prisoner had told:

 “He was part of a large group, which, according to him, was first transferred from Syria to Turkey, then to Baku.  He said that Azerbaijanis and Turks promised them a lot of money, but they haven’t paid a dime so far.”

In a video interrogation published by the Karabakh Defense Army, the captive Syrian says that for his participation in the war in Karabakh he was promised $2,000 a month and another $100 for each severed head of the enemy.

 • In an interview with Al Jazeera TV, answering a question as to whether the Armenian side can return the territories that Azerbaijan has captured, the Armenian Prime Minister replied:

 “The Azerbaijani authorities […] have been waiting for a long time for […] the war to end with their final victory.  But they won’t hear this news.  And they will plunge more and more [into frustration, the impossibility of fulfilling these plans] until they recognize the legitimate right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination, until we all make sincere efforts to reach a diplomatic solution.”

 • “Because of the shelling and hostilities, more than 200 schools and 60 preschool educational institutions were closed in Karabakh, 24 thousand children were deprived of the right to education – they left for Armenia for security reasons,” Karabakh Ombudsman Artak Beglaryan said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

 • As a result of shelling by the Azerbaijani military, a total of 61 schools and 10 kindergartens have been destroyed, the Karabakh information center reports, referring to the Minister of Education, Science and Culture Lusine Kagramanyan.

 “The international community is showing criminal indifference to what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Kagramanyan.