Azerbaijan decries Armenian ‘adventurism,’ attempts to ‘deliberately aggravate situation’
ANKARA (AA) – Armenian forces fired at border positions of the Azerbaijani army for hours starting late on Tuesday night, Azerbaijani authorities said on Wednesday.
Armenian troops stationed in the Basarkechar and Shamshaddin regions used “small arms and large-caliber machine guns” to target Azerbaijani posts around the Kalbajar and Tovuz areas, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The firing started just before midnight on Tuesday and continued until a few hours before dawn on Wednesday, the ministry said.
This came after an Azerbaijani soldier was killed by Armenian firing in the western Kalbajar border region earlier on Tuesday.
Armenia’s aggression “with no special reason and violation of its obligations … is a deliberate military provocation and adventurism,” read the statement.
It said the Azerbaijani army took “adequate and appropriate measures,” and there were “no losses among the military personnel and equipment.”
Currently, the situation in the region is “relatively calm” and under the Azerbaijani army’s control, the ministry said.
The Azerbaijani military has “intensified” vigilance due to “the possibility of repeated attempts by Armenia to deliberately aggravate the situation,” it added.
Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions
Their most recent clashes were in September 2020, during which Azerbaijan liberated several cities and nearly 300 settlements and villages that were occupied by Armenia for nearly three decades.
A Russia-brokered deal brought an end to 44 days of intense conflict in November 2020.