BAKU: Azerbaijan and Armenia have reported that troops from both sides were killed in a shootout along their shared border, marking the latest escalation in the long-standing territorial dispute between the two nations.
Azerbaijan’s defence ministry stated that Armenian army positions deployed near the settlement of Dyg opened heavy fire at Azerbaijani army positions.
The ministry added that there were casualties among Azerbaijani troops, but it did not provide details on the number of casualties.
The Armenian defence ministry reported an unspecified number of casualties, blaming Azerbaijan for initiating the shootout.
Border dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan
In 2020, the two ex-Soviet Caucasus nations fought their second war over Azerbaijan’s Armenian-majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the latest hostilities ending in a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Under the agreement, Armenia ceded a large territory it had controlled for decades, and Russia deployed peacekeepers to oversee the fragile ceasefire.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have held several rounds of peace talks mediated by the United States and the European Union.
