Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has dismissed media reports in Armenia on the killing of Azerbaijani servicemen on the contact line of two sides' troops.

The Ministry told Trend on January 6 that the Armenian media reports about the death of three servicemen of the Azerbaijani army is baseless.

The Armenian media reported that the Azerbaijani army allegedly has lost three servicemen, including "non-commissioned officer" Eldar Mammadov during an exchange of fire on the contact line on the night of January 6.

They also reported that two Armenian soldiers were killed during ceasefire breaches.

The Armenian armed forces have recently escalated the tensions on the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops with frequent ceasefire violations.

They fired at the positions of the Azerbaijani armed forces and frontline settlements by using large-caliber weapons, anti-tank grenade launchers and 60- and 82-millimeter mortars on January 3.

The municipality of Bash Garvand village of Azerbaijan’s Aghdam region told local media that five houses were damaged during Armenian armed forces attacks.

The Armenian troops fired 15 shells at the village in the last two days.

One of the villagers said that his family has survived the shelling by chance as one of the shells landed at a five meter distance from the house and almost all the windows were broken and shrapnel scattered into the rooms. Another villager said he and his family had to spend the whole night in the basement.

The Armenian armed forces frequently wound the villagers in their homes or on their farms.

Several months ago, the Armenian forces killed a resident in the Tartar region while he was fishing. They also injured three children while they were playing in their homes' yard.

Due to the frequent ceasefire violations by Armenian armed forces, the Azerbaijani villagers have gone through great difficulties, as constant shelling of their homes has hampered their daily life.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. However, the negotiations have been largely fruitless so far despite the efforts of the co-chair countries over 20 years.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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