Azerbaijan rejects Armenia’s claims about firing on military positions, killing of soldier

Azerbaijan rejected Yerevan's claims that it fired on its military positions which allegedly killed an Armenian soldier.

"We vehemently reject the statement issued by Armenia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on December 4, 2023, in which it was claimed that an Armenian soldier was killed as a result of fire purportedly opened by Azerbaijan," said a statement by the country's Foreign Ministry late Monday.

The statement said that Yerevan's assertion is aimed to "conceal the disorder and chaos in its armed forces," adding that Armenia is trying to jeopardize the possibilities for normalization between the two countries through such statements.

"With such statements, Armenia also intends to generate fake tension in border areas and attract the attention of third-party states," the statement said.

It added Azerbaijan will continue its efforts for peace and reconstruction in the post-conflict period and that it will oppose any attempts to undermine this process.

Earlier, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry on Facebook defined the Armenian Defense Ministry's statement about Azerbaijani forces allegedly opening fire on Armenian positions as "completely false."

"We categorically deny this provocative information spread by the opposing side," it said.

Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Azerbaijan liberated most of the region during the war in the fall of 2020, which ended with a Russian-brokered peace agreement, opening the door to normalization.

The Azerbaijani army initiated an anti-terrorism operation in Karabakh this September to establish constitutional order, after which illegal separatist forces in the region surrendered.