AZERBAIJAN SOLDIER KILLED IN BORDER CLASH WITH ARMENIA

Tasnim News Agency, Iran
March 12 2015

March 12, 2015 – 16:38

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Armenian troops killed an Azerbaijani soldier in
the latest border clash between the arch-foes locked in conflict over
the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, officials in Baku said Thursday.

“On the evening of March 11 (Wednesday) an Armenian army reconnaissance
group attempted an attack on Azerbaijani positions and was repelled
after fierce fighting,” Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said in a
statement.

“An Azerbaijani army serviceman was killed in action.”

Baku and Yerevan have been in a decades-long dispute over Azerbaijan’s
Nagorno-Karabakh region since a bloody war in the early 1990s.

Ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control of
Karabakh and another seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan during
the conflict that left some 30,000 dead.

Despite years of negotiations, the two sides have not signed a final
peace deal, with Armenian-populated Karabakh still internationally
recognized as part of Azerbaijan, although no Azeris remain on the
territory.

Threatening a shaky 1994 truce, clashes between Azerbaijani and
Armenian forces intensified again in January following an unprecedented
spiral of violence last year.

At least 16 people from both sides were reported killed and 18 wounded
this year in sporadic flare-ups on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border,
and along the Karabakh frontline.

Baku, whose military spending exceeds Armenia’s entire state budget,
has threatened to take back the territories by force if negotiations
fail to yield results, according to AFP.

Armenia, which is heavily armed by Russia, says it could crush any
offensive.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress