YEREVAN, July 12. /TASS/. Armenia’s defense ministry said on Sunday positions of its army at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border were shelled by the Azerbaijani army.

“At 12:30 local time (11:30 Moscow time) today, due to unknown reasons, the Azerbaijani troops moving in an UAZ car tried to violated Armenia’s state border in the direction of the Tavush region. After a warning from the Armenian side, the Azerbaijani soldiers left their car and retreated to their positions. After that, Azerbaijani troops once again tried to seize the Armenian positions, opening artillery fire at them,” the ministry said.

According to the ministry, Azerbaijani troops retreated following retaliatory fire, sustaining losses. “There were no losses among Armenian servicemen,” it added.

The conflict between neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up but was mainly populated by Armenians, broke out in the early 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic.

In 1991-1994, the confrontation spilled over into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and some adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them.

Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been held since 1992 in the format of the so-called OSCE Minsk Group, comprising along with its three co-chairs – Russia, France and the United States – Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey.