Azerbaijan says Armenia must withdraw troops to end clashes

MOSCOW: Azerbaijan said Friday that Armenia must withdraw troops from the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region in order to end days of fighting, after France, Russia and the United States urged a ceasefire.

"If Armenia wants to see an end of this escalation of the situation, the ball is in the court of Armenia," Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign affairs aide to the president of Azerbaijan, told reporters during an online press conference.

"Armenia must ends its occupation," of Karabakh, he said. "Enough is enough."

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Fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces erupted Sunday over a longstanding territorial dispute centering around Karabakh.

Nearly 200 people including civilians have been killed in the fighting despite growing international calls for a ceasefire.

In a joint appeal on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump and Macron urged the two sides to return to negotiations aimed at resolving their longstanding territorial dispute.

Armenia earlier Friday said it "stands ready to engage" with France, Russia, and the United states -- which co-chair the OSCE group of mediators to the conflict -- "to re-establish a ceasefire regime."

But it also stressed talks could not begin unless fighting is halted.