Azerbaijan's border service announced that one of its guards was injured after he was shot by Armenian forces on Thursday. The statement by the border service said their soldiers were fired upon on the Lachin corridor, lying between Armenia and Karabakh, the territory Azerbaijan reclaimed in a military victory in 2020. It said the incident happened at around 8:45 a.m. local time and the Azerbaijani army retaliated to the attack. It also said the responsibility of "provocation fully lies with Armenia's military and political leadership."
Yerevan, on the other hand, claimed that an Armenian border guard was also injured on Thursday due to shelling by Azerbaijan of a village close to the bridge where it claimed that Azerbaijani border guards were attempting to hoist a flag "on Armenian territory."
The bridge lies at the beginning of the Lachin corridor, the last remaining route linking Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The road, which has been policed by Russian peacekeepers, has been blocked to most traffic since December after a group of Azerbaijani environmental activists began a blockade. In April, Azerbaijani troops installed a checkpoint on the route. Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh. In 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured chunks of territory lost in a conflict as Soviet rule collapsed in the early 1990s.
Binali Yıldırım, a senior official at the Organization of Turkic States (OTC), condemned the incident. Yıldırım, who was in Azerbaijan's Shusha on Thursday to mark the anniversary of a landmark declaration between Türkiye and Azerbaijan, said Armenia would be the "biggest loser" in "firing at peace like we have seen today in Lachin." The former Turkish prime minister who now serves as Türkiye's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) acting group chairperson said Armenia should "immediately engage in a normalization process with Azerbaijan."
Yıldırım noted that the Lachin corridor was opened in line with a trilateral protocol signed after the 44-day war in 2020 and allowed Armenians access to Karabakh. "The same protocol calls for the opening of the Zangezur corridor, and this should be implemented as soon as possible to connect Türkiye with Azerbaijan by land," he said. Yıldırım said Armenians living in Karabakh should also accept that the region belongs to Azerbaijan – not Armenia and that Azerbaijani laws apply there.
"Armed illegal groups there should abandon arms to ensure the peace of civilians in the region," he said.
