Armenia, Azerbaijan report deadly border clashes

Agencies | Yerevan                                                                         

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Armenia and Azerbaijan on Tuesday reported large-scale border clashes that left Azerbaijani troops dead in the latest flare-up between the arch foes.

There have been frequent reports of shootouts along their shared border since the end of the 2020 war between Yerevan and Baku over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region.

"At 00:05 a.m. (2005 GMT) on Tuesday, Azerbaijan launched intensive shelling, with artillery and large-calibre firearms, against Armenian military positions in the direction of the cities of Goris, Sotk, and Jermuk," Armenia's defence ministry said.

It said in a statement Azerbaijan had also used drones.

But Azerbaijan's defence ministry accused Armenia of "large-scale subversive acts" near the districts of Dashkesan, Kelbajar and Lachin on the border, adding that its army positions "came under fire, including from trench mortars".

"There are losses among (Azerbaijani) servicemen," it said, without giving figures.

Last week, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing one of its soldiers in a border shootout.

In August, Azerbaijan said it had lost a soldier and the Karabakh army said two of its troops had been killed and more than a dozen injured.

The neighbours fought two wars - in the 1990s and in 2020 - over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan's Armenian-populated enclave.

Hostilities

Russian news agencies reported early on Tuesday a resumption of decades-old hostilities linked to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan, which re-established full control over the territory in a six-week conflict in 2020, acknowledged casualties among its forces. Armenia made no mention of losses, but said clashes persisted overnight.

The Yerevan government said it would invoke a cooperation agreement with Russia and appeal to a Russia-led security bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, as well as the United Nations Security Council, Interfax reported.

Each side blamed the other for the outbreak in fighting.

"Several positions, shelters and reinforced points of the Azerbaijan armed forces ... came under intense shelling from weapons of various calibres, including mortars, by units of the Armenian army," the agencies quoted a statement by Azerbaijan's Defence Ministry as saying.

Local actions

"As a result, there are losses in personnel and damage to military infrastructure." Azerbaijani statements said Armenian forces had been engaged in intelligence activity on its border, moved weapons into the area and on Monday night had conducted mining operations.

It said its actions were "strictly local in nature aimed at military targets." Armenia's Defence Ministry said: "Intensive shooting is continuing - started as a result of a large-scale provocation by the Azerbaijani side. Armenia's armed forces have launched a proportionate response." Conflict first broke out in the late 1980s when both sides were under Soviet rule and Armenian forces captured swathes of territory near Nagorno-Karabkah - long recognised internationally as Azerbaijan's territory, but with a large Armenian population.

Ceasefire

Azerbaijan regained those territories in the 2020 fighting, which ended with a Russian-brokered truce and thousands of residents returning to homes from which they had fled. The leaders of both countries have since met several times to hammer out a treaty intended to establish a lasting peace.

Six weeks of fighting in the autumn of 2020 claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades and Moscow deployed some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.

During EU-mediated talks in Brussels in May and April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed to "advance discussions" on a future peace treaty.

Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.