⁍ U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

---

⁍ Both sides accused each other on Tuesday of striking targets outside Nagorno-Karabakh itself in defiance of a truce brokered by Pompeo at the weekend.

---

⁍ World powers want to prevent a wider war that might suck in Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia.

---

– Fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh entered a second month on Tuesday, defying a ceasefire brokered by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the weekend. Armenia acknowledged overnight that Nagorno-Karabakh forces had withdrawn from a strategic town between the enclave and the Iranian border, an apparent military gain for Azerbaijan, reports Reuters. Both sides accused each other on Tuesday of striking targets outside Nagorno-Karabakh itself in defiance of a truce brokered by Pompeo at the weekend. Azerbaijan’s defense ministry denied that Armenia had fired mortars in the direction of the village of Aghband in Zangilan region, east of Nagorno-Karabakh and inside Azeri territory, also near the Iranian border. Azerbaijan later reported four civilian deaths after shelling in the village of Garayusifli, miles from the conflict zone in the Barda region of central Azerbaijan. Stepanyan, the Armenian defense spokeswoman, denied this. Iran’s foreign ministry said on Twitter that Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi would travel to several countries to discuss the crisis. The OSCE Minsk Group, formed to mediate the conflict and led by France, Russia, and the United States, is scheduled to meet the Armenian and Azeri foreign ministers in Geneva on Oct. 29.