Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of shelling its army positions - Azerbaijani defense ministry

Armenia has shelled Azerbaijani army positions located in the Shakhbuzskiy district of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, which borders on Armenia, wounding one Azeri serviceman, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said on Thursday.


"Despite a ceasefire agreement, the Azerbaijani army positions in the Shakhbuzskiy district of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic came under fire opened from the territory of the Yekhegnadzorsky district of Armenia on May 12. An Azerbaijani serviceman was lightly wounded," the press service of Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said.


Fierce clashes erupted on the line of contact between the opposing sides in Nagorno-Karabakh, another disputable territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan, early on April 2. Later, the sides accused each other of violating the ceasefire established in 1994.


Colonel-General Nadzhmeddin Sadykov, the chief of staff of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, and Colonel General Yuri Khachaturov, the chief of staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, met at the Russia-mediated talks in Moscow on April 5. They agreed to cease all military hostilities along the contact line separating the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops. The ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh came into force as of 11:00 Moscow time the same day. Short skirmishes are still occurring on the contact line on and off.


Nagorno-Karabakh, a de facto independent state inhabited predominantly by ethnic Armenians, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. It came into existence as the result of the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that ended in May 1994. Since then, representatives of the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group on the region's disputed status since then.

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