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    Categories: 2023

Armenian and Azerbaijani border clash leaves five dead

DW – Deutsche Welle, Germany
March 5 2023
03/05/2023March 5, 2023

A disagreement over the Lachin Corridor in Nagorno-Karabakh turned deadly when parties on both sides of the border fired on each other.

At least five people were killed in a flare-up of violence along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region on Sunday.

Officials on both sides blamed each other for the exchange of fire.

Armenia said three police had been killed, while Azerbaijan said two of its soldiers "became martyrs."

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said a shootout occurred when soldiers went to check vehicles suspected of transporting weapons. Armenia said the Azerbaijani armed forces opened fire on the car of a Passport and Visa Department of the police.

The two former Soviet nations have been locked in a conflict for decades over the mountainous region, which in 2020 boiled over into full-blown war.

A Russian-brokered peace deal was reached late in 2020 after more than 6,000 lives were lost.

There have been several flare-ups between the two sides since the agreement was signed.

The agreement to end the 2020 war left a winding road called the Lachin Corridor as the only authorized connection between Nagorno- Karabakh and Armenia, a lifeline for supplies to the region's approximately 120,000 people.

However, traffic on that road has been mostly blocked since December by Azerbaijani environmental activists to protest what they say is illegal mining.

Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of backing the protesters to create blockade.

"Sending an international fact-finding team to the Lachin corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh is becoming a vital necessity,"  Armenia's foreign ministry said after the shooting.

Azerbaijan's ministry of defence said, "Today's incident once again shows that Azerbaijan needs to create an appropriate checkpoint on the Lachin-Khankendi road."

lo/jcg (AFP, AP)

Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS