Armenian forces have attacked Azerbaijani positions near the Karabakh region, which the two neighbors have been fighting over intermittently for 30 years, Azerbaijan’s official news agency said on Sunday.
“Starting from the evening of July 30 and during the night of July 31, the Armenian Armed Forces units using small arms subjected to intensive fire the Azerbaijan Army positions stationed in direction of Gadabay and Kalbajar districts of the state border,” Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense told AZERTAC.
Separately, Armenia's defence ministry denied the charge, the Interfax news agency said.
Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military illegally occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
Clashes erupted on Sept. 27, 2020, with the Armenian Army attacking civilians and Azerbaijani forces and violating several humanitarian cease-fire agreements.
During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and around 300 settlements and villages that had been occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.
The fighting ended with a Russian-brokered agreement on Nov. 10, 2020, which was seen as a victory for Azerbaijan and a defeat for Armenia.
In January 2021, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a pact to develop economic ties and infrastructure to benefit the entire region. It also included the establishment of a trilateral working group in Karabakh.
After the conflict ended, Azerbaijan launched a massive reconstruction initiative in the liberated Karabakh region.
Most recently, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia met in the Georgian capital Tbilisi for their first one-on-one talks since the war.
They were expected to build on an agreement that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reached under European Union mediation in May to "advance discussions" on a future peace treaty.
The two leaders met in Brussels in April and May, and European Council President Charles Michel has said their next meeting is scheduled for July or August.
Following its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, an increasingly isolated Moscow lost its status as the primary mediator in the conflict.
The EU has since led the Azerbaijan-Armenia normalization process, which involves peace talks, border delimitation and the reopening of transport links.
