Agence France Presse
March 13, 2015 Friday 4:07 PM GMT

Armenia forces kill second Azerbaijan soldier this week: Baku

Baku, March 13 2015

Armenian troops have killed a second Azerbaijani soldier this week,
Baku said Friday, threatening a “severe” response to the latest
violence in a long-standing conflict over the disputed Nagorny
Karabakh region.

“On March 13, the Armenian armed forces violated the ceasefire. An
Azerbaijani soldier was shot dead” in the latest border clash between
the arch-foes, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said in a statement.

“Azerbaijan’s counter-strike will be severe,” it added.

The incident comes after another soldier was killed in an attack on
Azerbaijani positions on Wednesday.

Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a dispute over Azerbaijan’s
Nagorny Karabakh region since a bloody war in the early 1990s.

Yerevan-backed ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of Karabakh
and another seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan during the conflict
that left some 30,000 dead.

Despite years of negotiations, the two sides have not signed a final
peace deal, with Armenian-populated Karabakh still internationally
recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

Karabakh’s ethnic-Azeri community — which before the war made up
around 25 percent of the population — was entirely driven out.

Threatening a shaky 1994 truce, clashes between Azerbaijani and
Armenian forces intensified again in January following an
unprecedented spiral of violence last year.

At least 18 people from both sides were reported killed and as many
wounded this year in sporadic flare-ups on the Armenian-Azerbaijani
border, and along the Karabakh frontline.

Baku, whose military spending exceeds Armenia’s entire state budget,
has threatened to take back the territories by force if negotiations
fail to yield results.

Armenia, backed militarily by Russia, says it could crush any offensive.