Azerbaijan Claims Armenia Targeted Key Pipeline

The feud between two former soviet republics seems not to be ending.

Azerbaijani authorities have accused Armenia of launching missiles to target the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that carries Azerbaijani crude to Turkey and on to global markets.

They said the missile attack was repelled by the Azerbaijani military.

Shushan Stepanian, the spokeswoman for the Armenian Defence Ministry, denied that the Armenian forces were targeting oil and gas facilities.

She added, however, that all Azerbaijani military assets used to attack Nagorno-Karabakh “will be destroyed irrespective of their location”.

Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry said that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline segment in the Yevlakh region was targeted on Tuesday.

The rockets, according to the Azerbaijan officials, hit the location but the pipeline itself was not damaged.Yevlakh region is located 50 km (about 31 miles) away from the frontline on the Azerbaijan territory.

Heavy fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh since Sept. 27 has killed hundreds in the worst escalation of hostilities since 1994 when a truce ended a war that raged for several years.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia for more than a quarter-century.