Armenian forces shot and killed an Azerbaijani soldier near a disputed region on Friday, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said, but a senior Armenian official rejected any violation of the fragile truce from their side amid the rising tension over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijani Defense Ministry spokesman Eldar Sabiroglu told Agence France-Presse that the 19-year-old soldier was killed after Armenian forces opened fire on Azerbaijani positions near a cease-fire line.
Following Azerbaijan’s reports, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson David Karapetian denied a cease-fire violation from the Armenian side, the Armenian News.am website reported. “No cease-fire violations were registered by Armenia,” News.am quoted Karapetian as saying.
Tensions over Karabakh have been increasing this year amid stalled peace talks, with the number of deadly shootings along the ceasefire line on the rise for months.
At least 21 soldiers on both sides have been reported killed in clashes this year, including 11 killed in the last two months, according an AFP count.
International mediators and Western diplomats have raised concerns about increasing violence over Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control from Baku in a war in the early 1990s that left an estimated 30,000 dead.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced at a summit with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts this week that the two sides had agreed to a prisoner swap. The United States on Thursday also threw its support behind the prisoner exchange and urged the rival nations to implement the deal quickly.
"We appreciate President Medvedev's personal efforts to reach this agreement, which aims to build confidence between the parties and to strengthen the 1994 ceasefire," U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. "We look forward to seeing its implementation as soon as possible," he told reporters.
There was, however, little sign of progress at the summit in resolving the longstanding conflict, though Medvedev expressed hope that the basic principles of a peace deal could be agreed by early December.
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are spread along a cease-fire line in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, often facing each other at close range, and shootings are common.
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