International mediators in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have voiced "serious concern" over the increase in tensions and violence in the region, including “the targeted killings of civilians."
Russian, French, and U.S. representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group held separate meetings earlier this week with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels, Eduard Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov.
The Minsk Group is trying to mediate a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan dispute control of Karabakh, which was violently seized from Azerbaijan by ethnic Armenian forces in the early 1990s.
On July 23, the mediators issued a statement from Vienna, saying that during the meetings they urged the parties "to committ themselves to avoiding casualties” and "rejected the deliberate targeting of villages and the civilian population."