14:42, 2 April 2020

Azerbaijan claims machine-gun shelling attacks in conflict zone

Soldier of the Azerbaijani Army. Photo: press service of the Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan, https://mod.gov.az/ru/foto-arhiv-045/?gid=28684

Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of Armenia shelled the positions of the Azerbaijani Army in the conflict zone for 24 times, including from machine guns, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) has informed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 1, the Azerbaijani MoD counted 24 ceasefire violations in the Karabakh conflict zone; the day earlier – 22 violations.

"By using large-calibre machine guns, during the past 24 hours, units of Armenian Armed Forces violated the ceasefire in various sections of the frontline for 24 times," the Azerbaijani MoD has reported on its website today.

According to the MoD, the positions of the Azerbaijani Army stationed in the villages of Guschu Airym, Mezem, Gyzylgadjyly, Bala Djafarli and on anonymous heights in the Gazakh District, and in the villages of Agdam, Kokhanebi of the Tovuz District, and on anonymous heights in the Gadabay District, were shelled.

As of 9:30 a.m. Moscow time today, the MoDs of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh had not commented on this statement on their websites.

After the escalation of the Karabakh conflict in April 2016, the parties to the conflict agreed on a ceasefire, but the confrontation did not stop. In 2019, Azerbaijan registered a period of almost complete ceasefire on the front, which lasted about a month, and Nagorno-Karabakh announced the lowest number of shelling attacks on its positions within 10 years.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 2, 2020 at 09:37 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.