[Armenian News note: the below is translated from Azeri]

Azerbaijan has described as a “reckless scheme” Armenia’s plans to send its internal troops to Nagorno-Karabakh to protect the breakaway region’s borders.

“This move by Armenia’s new government is a reckless military scheme and contributes to the worsening of the situation. In violation of the international law, Armenia has accumulated its troops and military hardware in the occupied territory of Azerbaijan,” APA quoted Azeri Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmat Haciyev as saying on 4 July.

“The fact that instead of withdrawing its troops from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, Armenia is deploying its internal troops on that territory clearly demonstrates once again that Armenia is an invader state and that Yerevan is not interested in resolving the conflict through negotiations,” Haciyev said.

Armenian website Hraparak.am reported on 3 July that detachments of internal troops of the Armenian police would be sent to Nagorno-Karabakh on 15-day border protection missions in rotation starting from 15 August.