Baku –
Azerbaijan and Armenia say seven servicemen were killed in the exchange of fire along the two countries’ common border. The exchange of fire follows the latest escalation between the two arch-rivals locked in a decades-long territorial dispute.
The two former Soviet Caucasus countries have fought two wars over the Armenian-majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. The most recent hostilities ended in 2020 with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
“The positions of the Armenian soldiers deployed near the settlement of Dyg (on the common border of the two countries) opened heavy fire on the positions of the Azerbaijani soldiers,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry in Baku said in a statement.
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry added that its forces had returned Armenian fire. Hours later, it said three soldiers were killed in the clashes.
Meanwhile, the Armenian Ministry of Defense reported four killed and six injured. Armenia blames Azerbaijan for starting the exchange of fire.
“At 16:00 (1200 GMT) on Tuesday, the armed forces of Azerbaijan opened fire on Armenian soldiers who were carrying out engineering work near the border,” the ministry said.
Under a Russian-mediated cease-fire agreement in the fall of 2020, Armenia gave up most of the territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow deployed peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have held several rounds of peace talks brokered by the European Union and the United States.
Last month, Pashinyan noted some progress in the peace process, but underlying problems remain as Azerbaijan seeks to make territorial claims, which is a red line for Armenia.
In February, the European Union deployed an expanded monitoring mission to the Armenian side of the border as Western involvement grew in an area traditionally the Kremlin’s sphere of influence.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed about 30 thousand lives.
(fas/fas)
