GAPANLI, Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan and separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakhk on Tuesday agreed on a cease-fire starting noon local time following three days of the heaviest fighting in the disputed region since 1994, the Azeri defense ministry announced.

The operations of Azerbaijani and Karabakh troops “have been stopped,” the ministry said.

Senor Asratyan, a spokesman for the defense ministry of self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh, confirmed the cease-fire deal.

An Associated Press reporter in the front-line area of Azerbaijan heard shelling Tuesday morning but there was no sound of fighting in the early afternoon.

Fighting in what had been a dormant conflict erupted over the weekend with each side blaming the other for the escalation and using heavy weaponry.

The outbreak of hostilities is the worst since a war that ended in 1994 and left Nagorno-Karabakh — officially a part of Azerbaijan — under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military. Armenian forces also occupy several areas outside Karabakh proper.

The conflict is fueled by long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azeris. Armenia, although supporting the separatists, insists that its army does not engage in the fighting.

Earlier, the Azeri government said 16 Azerbaijani troops and one civilian were killed in the past two days of fighting as Karabakh militia continued to shell its positions Monday night.

In Terter, an Azerbaijan front-line town over 300 km west of the capital Baku, artillery salvos were heard late Monday.