Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry reported 60 shellings of the army positions near the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the border with Armenia in the past day.

The shellings, carried out from the positions in the Chinari village of the Berdsky district and the highland areas in Armenia’s Chambaraksky district, targeted Azerbaijan’s army positions in the village of Kokanebi in the adjacent Tovuz district, the Zamanly village and the highland areas in the Kedabeksky district, also located in the border area.

Baku also claimed that the Azerbaijani forces’ positions came under shelling from the settlements adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, which are controlled by Armenian forces.

The situation on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border escalated on July 12, when Azerbaijan said that the Armenian army had tried to attack Azerbaijan’s positions with use of artillery systems. Armenia, in turn, said the situation on the border had aggravated after Azerbaijan’s attempted attack. Baku has reported the death of twelve servicemen. Yerevan said five Armenian soldiers had been killed and nine more were wounded. Since July 17, the situation on the border has been relatively calm, both sides said.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.

 

(TASS)