Azerbaijan says it has taken Karabakh's second-largest city, Armenia denies it

Ethnic Armenian soldiers walk past a house destroyed by shelling by Azerbaijan's artillery in Stepanakert, the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Credit: AP Photo

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday his country's forces had taken Shusha, the second-largest city in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, a statement that Armenian officials denied.

The city, called Shushi by Armenians, is of cultural and strategic importance to both sides and is located 15 km (9 miles) south of the enclave's largest city Stepanakert.

At least 1,000 people have died in nearly six weeks of fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians.