UPDATE - Armenian attack kills 5 civilians in Ganja, Azerbaijan

CHANGES HEAD, DECK, LEDE, ADDS INFORMATION, REMARKS OF TURKEY’S PARTY SPOKESMAN

By Ruslan Rehimov

BAKU (AA) - At least five civilians were killed and 35 injured after the Armenian army struck Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, Ganja, with missile attacks, a top Azerbaijani official said Saturday.

“Two kids are among the dead. Emergency works are still going on. Armenia's terror and War Crimes continues,” Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the Azerbaijani president, said on Twitter.

“Armenia's foreign ministry in vile manner attempts to deny its state responsibility for this nefarious war crimes,” he said, stressing that Ganja is far from the combat zone.

“Innocent civilians in the second biggest city of Azerbaijan are under the indiscriminate and targeted missile attack of Armenia,” Hajiyev said earlier.

“Unscrupulous calls for humanitarian ceasefire should see these war crimes of Armenia,” he said.

More than 20 houses were destroyed, according to preliminary reports, he added.

“New missiles systems have been brought to Armenia. Immediately they started to attack civilians in Azerbaijani cities in treacherous and cruel manner,” Hajiyev said in a separate tweet. It is a “manifestation of Armenia's state policy of terror,” he said.

The Armenian army also launched missile attacks on Mingachevir.

Turkey’s ruling party spokesman reiterated support for Azerbaijan and condemned Armenia's attacks.

“Armenia is killing civilians as a rogue state. It is carrying out brutal massacres. The murderers and their supporters are breaking the law. Attacks against Ganja are crimes against humanity,” Omer Celik said on Twitter, noting the attacks and massacres will not go unpunished before adding that Armenia must be convicted in the name of humanity and law.

- Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Recent clashes erupted between the two countries Sept. 27, and since then, Armenia has continued its attacks on civilians and Azerbaijani forces.

Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General's Office said Friday that at least 47 civilians were killed and 222 injured because of new Armenian attacks.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.

The OSCE Minsk Group – co-chaired by France, Russia, and the US – was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but to no avail. A cease-fire, however, was agreed to in 1994. Multiple UN resolutions, as well as international organizations, demand the withdrawal of the occupying forces.

World powers, including Russia, France, and the US, have urged a new cease-fire. Turkey, meanwhile, has supported Baku's right to self-defense and demanded the withdrawal of Armenia's occupying forces.

About 20% of Azerbaijan's territory has remained under illegal Armenian occupation for nearly three decades.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar and Havva Kara Aydin