EU concerned over rising Karabakh violence

(BAKU) - The European Union is concerned about increasing violence over the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region and urges Azerbaijan and Armenia to focus on peace talks, a senior EU envoy said Monday.

"The European Union is concerned with the frequent incidents on the ceasefire line recently. It is necessary to concentrate on peace negotiations," EU envoy to the South Caucasus Peter Semneby told ANS television on a visit to the Azerbaijani capital Baku.

Fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over Karabakh has been on the rise for months, with at least 16 soldiers on both sides reported killed in skirmishes over the region this year. Six soldiers were reported killed in clashes over the last week in some of the heaviest fighting this year.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Minsk Group, which is overseeing peace talks on Karabakh, also raised concerns about the increasing violence in a statement Monday.

The group's three co-chairs, from France, Russia and the United States, "strongly condemn any violation of the ceasefire, in particular incursions across the line of contact," it said.

The statement said the group would be intensifying its efforts to push for a peace deal this autumn and will hold a series of meetings in Baku, Yerevan and Karabakh in the coming months.

Tensions over Karabakh have risen amid stalled negotiations over the status of the region, where ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control from Baku in a war in the early 1990s that left an estimated 30,000 dead.

Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are spread across a ceasefire line in and around Nagorny Karabakh, often facing each other at close range, and shootings are common.