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| - Four soldiers have been killed as troops from Azerbaijan and Armenia clashed on their border for a second day on Monday, in an escalation of a decades-long territorial dispute. Regional rivals Russia and Turkey condemned the confrontation, with Armenia ally Moscow describing it as "unacceptable" and Ankara reiterating longstanding support for Azerbaijan. Three Azerbaijanis were killed on Sunday and one on Monday, the country's defence ministry said, adding that both sides were using artillery, mortars and tanks on the northern area of their border. The two former Soviet republics have been locked in a simmering conflict for decades over Nagorny Karabakh, a breakaway territory seized by ethnic-Armenian separatists in a 1990s war that claimed 30,000 lives. The international community still views the region as part of Azerbaijan and peace talks are still going on. The current fighting -- hundreds of miles from Karabakh -- erupted days after Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev raised the spectre of war and denounced delays in Karabakh talks. Each side blames the other for the flare-up. "Armenia's political and military leadership will bear the entire responsibility for the provocation," Aliyev told his officials in a meeting. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of "provocations" that would "not be unanswered" and his defence minister said Armenian forces would react "including by taking advantageous positions" in Azerbaijani territory. Armenia's foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on Monday discussed the crisis by phone with the head of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Moscow-led military bloc. Before the call, Azerbaijani officials had already said Armenia's "military adventure" was aimed at drawing the CSTO into the fighting. Azerbaijan has received strong backing from its allies in Ankara. Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Azerbaijan was just trying to "protect its territorial integrity", labelling Armenia's actions "unacceptable" and urging the country to "come to its senses". Armenia's regional ally Russia expressed "serious concerns" over the crisis, which it said "endangers the region's stability" and urged both parties to "show restraint". Peace talks between the two sides have been going on since 1994, mediated by the "Minsk Group" of diplomats from France, Russia and the United States. Aliyev threatened last week to withdraw from talks "if they do not yield results" and rejected statements by negotiators that there could be no military solution. Energy-rich Azerbaijan, whose military spending exceeds Armenia's entire state budget, has repeatedly threatened to take back the territory by force. Moscow-allied Armenia has vowed to crush any military offensive. In 2016, deadly clashes in Karabakh nearly spiralled into full-scale war. mkh-eg-im/jbr/jxb
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