Authorities say a shoot-out along the border has left one Armenian soldier dead and "losses" on the Azerbaijani side as tensions continue to simmer between the two countries after last year's war over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said the skirmish took place in the mid-morning of July 14, claiming Azerbaijani forces "provoked" the Armenians when they tried to advance their positions inside Armenian territory at the Yeraskh section of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan's Naxcivan exclave, which is sandwiched between Armenia and Iran.
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry claimed that Armenian armed forces opened fire from weapons of various calibers at Azerbaijani positions in the Sadarak district of the Naxcivan region.
The "Azerbaijani side also suffered losses," with at least one soldier wounded," the ministry said.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said the situation in the area is now “stable” and under the control of its military forces.
Long-running tensions between the two South Caucasus nations escalated with last year's war over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but had been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s.
Some 6,000 people were killed in six weeks of fighting that ended in a Moscow-brokered cease-fire deal.
Under the cease-fire, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.
The agreement also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers, and provided for an exchange of POWs and other detained people.
Several prisoner exchanges have since taken place.
