Armenian armed forces opened fire on Azerbaijani army positions in the Kalbajar district of East Zangezur overnight, according to Azerbaijani media.
The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry stated that Armenian forces stationed near the Zarkand settlement in the Basarkechar region opened fire on Azerbaijani army positions in Kalbajar late on Sunday night.
On 18 August, at about 23:50 the Armenian armed forces stationed in the direction of Zarkand settlement in Basarkechar region using small arms subjected to fire the Azerbaijan Army positions stationed in the direction of the Damirchidam settlement of the Kalbajar region.
According to the report, the Azerbaijani military “took adequate retaliatory measures in the mentioned direction.”
The incident occurred during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Baku, where he intended to discuss, among other issues, the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute settlement with senior Azerbaijani officials.
Relations between Baku and Yerevan have remained tense since 1991, when Armenians captured Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognised part of Azerbaijan. Most of the territory was seized by Azerbaijan during a 44-day war in autumn 2020, which ended after the signing of a Russian-brokered peace agreement that paved the way for normalisation and talks on border demarcation.
However, last September Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh in what it called an “anti-terrorist operation.” As a result, tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians were forced to leave the region and return to Armenia.
