The ministry said the incident occurred late Sunday when a group of Azerbaijani gunmen tried to cross into Armenia. It said Monday that an Armenian civilian and an Azerbaijani intruder were killed in the skirmish. The Armenian forces let Azerbaijan recover the intruder's body.

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry denied that such incident had occurred, according to the Interfax news agency.

The two ex-Soviet neighbors have been locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region, which along with some adjacent territory has been under the control of Armenian soldiers and local Armenian forces since a 1994 ceasefire that ended a six-year war. Attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement have stalled.

 

(AP)