The situation on the line of contact between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, in the direction of the state border with Armenia, is increasingly aggravated by Armenian armed forces, AzTV reports referring to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry's press service.

On September 21, at 09:20 (GMT +4), as a result of another military provocation of Armenia in the Tovuz direction on the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border, a serviceman of the Azerbaijan Army, Junior Sergeant Elshan Mammadov was killed.

According to the ministry, the military-political leadership of Armenia bears the entire responsibility for the aggravation of the situation in the front.

The ministry also stressed that recently the units of the armed forces of Armenia have been more often committing gross violations of the ceasefire, regularly shelling Azerbaijani public settlements, civilians, and infrastructure near the line of contact, using larger-caliber weapons, reconnaissance-sabotage activities against the positions of our units, as well as widely using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have led to a serious aggravation of the situation on the line of contact.

“In all cases, units of different branches of troops of the Azerbaijan Army suppress the provocations of Armenian armed forces, inflicting heavy losses on them. So, as a result of the actions of Azerbaijani Air Defense units, another tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of Armenia was destroyed,” the ministry added.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.