13:53, 18 July 2018

Azerbaijan claims shelling of its positions in eight villages

Mortar fire. Photo: Sputnik / Mikhail Voskresenskyhttps://sputnik.az/karabakh/20171029/412534276/ateskes-yene-pozulub.html

On July 17-18, the positions of the Azerbaijani army were shelled 98 times, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported.

"During 24 hours, the Armenian armed forces used heavy machine guns and 98 times violated the ceasefire in various directions of the front line," the Azerbaijani MoD reports on its website today.

According to the MoD, the Azerbaijani positions were shelled in eight villages of the Agstafa, Gazakh, and Tovuz Districts, as well as on the nameless heights in the Gadabay District.

By 9:10 a.m. Moscow time of today, the official websites for the Ministries of Defence for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have not yet commented on the Azerbaijani side's statement. On July 14, the Nagorno-Karabakh MoD, which also regularly reported violations of the ceasefire by Azerbaijan, registered 170 cases of shelling during a week.

The parties to the conflict announced a truce in April 2016, after the escalation of the Karabakh conflict. However, the truce did not stop the confrontation. For two years, shelling did not cease even for a day in the Karabakh conflict zone, as follows from the infographics "Nagorno-Karabakh after the truce: a two-year war" prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 18, 2018 at 09:48 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.