Azernews.Az

BAKU – Armenian armed forces committed eight ceasefire violations on the contact line with Azerbaijani troops in the past 24 hours, Azerbaijan's defense ministry said in a statement.

After retaliation, an Armenian soldier was killed in Azerbaijan’s Khojavand region on Thursday, according to Armenia’s defense ministry.

Besides Khojavand, the Armenian forces breached ceasefire in the Gazakh, Jabrayil and Gadabay regions, the Azerbaijani ministry said. The shooting sparked retaliatory fire, with no casualties reported on the Azerbaijani side.

Meanwhile, the Armenian military launched a military exercise in the Azerbaijani territories it controls, another such drill being held this month. The country’s armed forces are reportedly using artillery and armored vehicles during the drills, which are being staged in the occupied parts of Azerbaijan’s Aghdam and Khojavand regions.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict for two decades. Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory since a war in the early 1990s. The ceasefire accord has been in place since 1994, but years of OSCE-brokered peace talks have been largely fruitless, and sporadic clashes on the frontline continue.