A humanitarian ceasefire will take effect on Monday morning in the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The announcement came in a joint statement on Sunday from the US State Department and the two governments. It comes after US secretary of state Mike Pompeo met the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington on Friday, and a meeting of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, formed to mediate the conflict and led by France, Russia and the US. A statement from the Minsk Group said: “During their intensive discussions, the co-chairs and foreign ministers discussed implementing an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, possible parameters for monitoring the ceasefire, and initiating discussion of core substantive elements of a comprehensive solution.” The humanitarian ceasefire would take effect at 8am local time. On Sunday, new fighting erupted between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces as both sides blamed each other for blocking a peaceful settlement to the conflict. Armenia accused Azerbaijani forces of shelling civilian settlements. Baku denied killing civilians and said it was ready to implement a ceasefire, provided that Armenian forces withdrew from the battlefield. Minsk Group said its co-chairs and foreign ministers agreed to meet again in Geneva on Thursday “to discuss, reach agreement on, and begin implementation, in accordance with a timeline to be agreed upon, of all steps necessary to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict”. Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. The latest fighting that began on 27 September has involved heavy artillery, rockets and drones, killing hundreds in the largest escalation of hostilities between the South Caucasus neighbours in more than a quarter of a century.