Four Armenian soldiers were shot dead and another one was wounded by Azerbaijani fire early on February 13 at one of the southern sections of the border between the two countries, the Armenian Defense Ministry said, in the first shooting incident in months.
The ministry said on February 13 that Azerbaijani armed forces opened fire at 5:30 a.m. against an Armenian military position in the direction of the village of Nerkin Hand in Syunik Province, killing two soldiers, and later updated the death toll to four and one wounded.
"Units of the Azerbaijani armed forces opened fire from small arms towards the Armenian combat post in the vicinity of Nerkin Hand village," the ministry said.
Armenian authorities did not release any other details, but Khachatur Baghdasarian, the mayor of Nerkin Hand, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the situation in the village was tense.
In response, Azerbaijan's State Border Service said in a statement on February 13 that Azerbaijani forces had "completely destroyed" an Armenian border post in Nerkin Hand during a "revenge operation" after Baku accused Armenian troops of opening fire on February 12 in the direction of Azerbaijani positions in the Zangelan district, claiming that one Azerbaijani border guard was wounded.
Armenia said it would investigate the incident, but so far no results of the promised investigation have been announced.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell reacted to the shooting incidents during a press conference with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan in Brussels.
"The Armenian shooting of the Azerbaijani soldier yesterday was deplorable, but the Azerbaijani response today seems to be disproportionate," Borrell said.
The latest incident came after a dramatic decrease of cross-border shoot-outs between the two Caucasus neighbors since last fall, when Azerbaijan regained full control of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a 24-hour military offensive on September 19-20 that forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee the region, leaving it nearly deserted.
No cross-border shootings had been reported by either side for more than two months.
Late last month, senior Armenian and Azerbaijani officials held direct talks on the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, a key hurdle to a comprehensive peace deal between the two nations.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have said they are ready to sign a peace agreement that would put an end to their decades-long enmity, but both have accused each other of dragging their feet on it.