YEREVAN, July 21. /TASS/. The Azerbaijani Armed Forces have opened fire from sniper rifles on the positions of the Armenian army in the northeastern area of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Armenia’s Defense Ministry Spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan informed on Facebook on Tuesday.
"The Azerbaijani Armed Forces opened fire from sniper rifles in an attempt to target our servicemen. The Azerbaijani Armed Forces have been warned of the consequences through the corresponding communication channels. Currently, the situation on the border is relatively calm," she wrote.
Tensions flared up on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border on July 12, when Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said that Armenian army units had tried to attack Azerbaijan’s positions at the Tovuz section of the border with the use of artillery systems. For its part, Yerevan accused Azerbaijan of breaching the border. Baku said twelve servicemen of Azerbaijan’s army died since the clashes had begun. Armenia, in turn, reported that four servicemen were killed in the hostilities, while 10 servicemen were wounded. On July 17, both sides of the conflict reported that the situation on the border is relatively stable.
The conflict between 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 primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs – Russia, France and the United States.