Four Azerbaijani soldiers were killed when troops from Azerbaijan and Armenia clashed on their border in a further escalation of their decades-long territorial dispute.
Three of the soldiers died on Sunday and one on Monday in artillery fire that broke out on Sunday near the Tavush region, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defending he said on Monday.
The fighting also wounded two Armenian troops and five Azerbaijani soldiers.
The Armenian Defense Ministry said Azerbaijan resumed bombardment of its positions on Monday morning after a night of fighting.
The countries have exchanged accusations on which side the fight began.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a cabinet meeting that “Azerbaijan’s provocations will not be answered.”
Armenian Defense Minister David Tonoyan warned that Yerevan “will react to Azerbaijan’s actions, even taking advantageous positions” on its territory.
He said that the Armenian forces “do not bomb civilian targets in Azerbaijan and only attack the engineering infrastructure and technical facilities of the Azerbaijani armed forces.”
‘Military adventure’
Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan discussed the crisis over the phone with the head of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led military bloc.
Referring to the military alliance, the office of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that Armenia’s “military adventure” was aimed at attracting the CSTO to the fighting.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement supporting Azerbaijan.
“Turkey will continue, to its full capacity, to support Azerbaijan in its fight to protect its territorial integrity,” the ministry said.
Total war between the two countries could drag regional powers, including Armenia’s military ally Russia, and Azerbaijan’s boss Turkey, vying for geopolitical influence in the strategic region.
The former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a simmering conflict for about 30 years over Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist territory that was at the center of a bloody war in the 1990s.
Continuous fighting is far from Karabakh and is directly between the two Caucasus states, which rarely occurs.
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