ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has extended the warmest felicitations to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and fraternal people of Azerbaijan on their Independence Day and also paid tribute to Azeri forces valiantly defending their territorial integrity.

In a tweet on Sunday, Imran Khan said, “Pakistan stands with Azerbaijan in its quest to resolve Nagorno-Karabakh issue as per United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.”

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in a latest tweet said, “Not a single force can resist the will of the Azerbaijani people. We have shown our power on the battlefield, both to the enemy and to the whole world. The source of our strength is the will of the Azerbaijani people.”

Islamabad fully supports Azerbaijan's position on Nagorno-Karabakh while Baku, Azerbaijan capital, endorsed Pakistan's stand on the Jammu and Kashmir conflict. Pakistan was one of the second states, after Turkey, to recognize Azerbaijan's independence in 1991.

The disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, a mountainous and heavily forested patch of land, is at the heart of a decades-long armed standoff between neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Home to some 145,000 people, Nagorno-Karabakh is controlled by ethnic Armenians backed by the Republic of Armenia, but is recognised as part of Azerbaijan under international law.

Azerbaijan lost control of the area in a war that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union some 30 years ago. A fragile ceasefire had been in place since 1994.

Thousands of people have fled the region, predominantly inhabited by ethnic Armenians, since fighting flared up again on September 27.

The Armenian defence ministry said that more than 600 soldiers had been killed since then.

Azerbaijan has so far not provided any information on losses in its armed forces but it says that more than 50 civilians were killed in Armenian attacks.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have announced plans for another attempt to enact a ceasefire over the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The warring sides say they will try to maintain a truce that resulted from phone calls between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers and their Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

However, both sides have accused each other of violating a new humanitarian ceasefire in fighting over Azerbaijan’s ethnic Armenian-controlled enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh early on Sunday. The agreement came into force at midnight on Sunday (2000 GMT).