DUSHANBE, April 4, 2016, Asia-Plus -- Azerbaijan said on Sunday it would stop fighting Armenian-backed separatists over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region after two days of clashes, but the other side voices doubts, denouncing Baku''s gesture as hollow.

The situation along the tense “contact line” deteriorated in recent weeks, leading to clashes in which dozens were killed that drew international calls for an immediate ceasefire.  Both sides also reported civilian casualties.

“Armenia has violated all the norms of international law. We won''t abandon our principal position.  But at the same time we will observe the ceasefire and after that we will try to solve the conflict peacefully,” President Ilham Aliyev said at a security council meeting broadcast by Azeri state TV.

Aliyev also said Azeri troops had achieved a "great victory" in an apparent reference to territorial gains made on Saturday.

Armenian officials, however, said the fighting had not let up and Deputy Defense Minister David Tonoyan said his country was ready to provide “direct military assistance” to Nagorno-Karabakh forces if necessary.

“The statement by the Azerbaijan side is an information trap and does not amount to a unilateral ceasefire," Artsrun Hovhannisyan, spokesman for the Armenian Defence Ministry, said in a post on his Facebook page.

Russian news agencies reported artillery attacks by both sides near the town of Mardakert in the north of Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to Reuters , the Nagorno-Karabakh military said Baku''s statement on a unilateral ceasefire was “disinformation” but that it was ready to discuss a ceasefire proposal from Azerbaijan on the condition both sides returned to their positions held before the clashes erupted.

“The Nagorno-Karabakh armed forces are ready to meet and discuss a ceasefire proposal in the context of restoring former positions,” the Nagorno-Karabakh military said.

The Azeri Defense Ministry said its forces had destroyed 10 separatist tanks and killed multiple fighters in overnight clashes.

The Nagorno-Karabakh military rejected the Azeri statements that it had suffered heavy losses as a “display of unrestrained fantasies,” saying it had destroyed 14 Azeri tanks and five armored vehicles in the past 24 hours.

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the warring sides to immediately observe the ceasefire while Russia''s foreign and defense ministers talked by phone with their Armenian and Azeri counterparts.

The RIA Novosti news agency reports that Azerbaijan''s presidential press service said Turkey, the other major power in the region along with Russia, had voiced support for Baku''s actions.

The United Nations has also called on the parties involved to put an immediate end to the fighting and to respect the ceasefire agreement.  “The Secretary General... is particularly concerned by the reported use of heavy weapons and by the large numbers of casualties, including among the civilian population,” a U.N. spokesman said in a statement late on Saturday.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic conflict between the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a region in Azerbaijan populated primarily by ethnic Armenians.  It has its origins in the early 20th century, although the present conflict began in 1988 and escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s.  Tensions and border skirmishes have continued in the region despite an official cease-fire signed in 1994.