EXPLAINER: What’s behind the new Armenia-Azerbaijan fighting

By The Associated Press

A flare-up in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan has killed 155 troops on both sides since early Tuesday. The neighboring countries at the crossroads of Asia and Europe are longtime adversaries in a conflict over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region. The mountainous region is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week war in 2020 that killed over 6,700 people. It ended with a peace deal brokered by Russia, which sent 2,000 peacekeepers to the region. The fighting that erupted Tuesday is the largest outbreak of hostilities in nearly two years.