Armenia accuses Azerbaijan of shelling country's army positions

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
11 May 2023 08:26

Armenia says four of its soldiers have been injured in an attack along the country’s border with Azerbaijan.

Armenian soldiers gather at their fighting positions near the village of Taghavard in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, January 11, 2021 (Reuters)

The Armenian Defense Ministry has accused Azerbaijan of having used “artillery, and mortars" to launch cross-border attacks on positions located in the direction of Sotk.

"On May 11, from 06:00 a.m., the units of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces opened fire from artillery and mortar means in the direction of the Armenian positions located in the direction of Sotk. The Ministry of Defense will make an additional statement," the Ministry said.

The Ministry added that four of its servicemen were wounded in the attack.

"The Minister of the Defence of Azerbaijan has also spread disinformation as if on the evening of May 10, the RA Armed Forces opened fire against the Azerbaijani positions," the statement said.

On its part, Azerbaijan said one of its soldiers was killed in clashes on the border with Armenia, which erupted just days before EU-hosted talks aimed at resolving their longstanding territorial dispute.

"A soldier from the Azerbaijani army was killed after a provocation from the Armenian forces," Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

This comes shortly after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed on May 5 that a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan is "within reach" after concluding four days of dialogue in Washington with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov.

Although no formal agreement has been reached between the two parties, Blinken said considerable progress has been made.

At the time, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that both countries have agreed on some provisions of a bilateral peace agreement.

The talks, which lasted for four days, took place at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Washington DC. Prior to the start of the talks, a US official said that bilateral dialogue was a primary objective for both parties to move towards normalizing relations.

Concurrently, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the resolution of the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan could only and exclusively be made with reference to the trilateral agreements concluded with Russia's involvement.

Six weeks of violence in the autumn of 2020 between Baku and Yerevan claimed over 6,500 lives and ended with a ceasefire accord sponsored by Russia. Russia sent 2,000 peacekeepers to monitor the truce, but tensions remain despite a ceasefire deal.