Pompeo says Nagorno-Karabakh fighting must stop

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is urging the militaries of Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop the intense fighting this week over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other's militaries on Tuesday of firing into the other's territory, far from the conflict zone.

It's the worst fighting over the region since the 1990s -- raging with tanks, warplanes, and artillery -- and the civilian death toll is mounting. Dozens have been reported killed and hundreds wounded.

This hospital in Nagorno-Karabakh is treating civilian victims.

"We took the children out so that they could hide or run away, but we failed. One of my family members, my nine-year-old daughter was killed either by artillery or a bomb dropped by them. My little boy is seriously injured, my wife is in the hospital, she is also injured."

Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan but run by ethnic Armenians and supported by Armenia. It broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s.

All-out war could also drag in major regional powers Russia and Turkey. Moscow has a defense alliance with Armenia, while Ankara backs its own ethnic Turkic kin in Azerbaijan.

The South Caucasus region is a corridor for pipelines carrying oil and gas to world markets.

The Kremlin also called on Tuesday for an end to the fighting, and said it's in constant contact with both sides of the conflict and Turkey as well.