Iran has voiced concern over the escalation of border tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, urging the two neighbors to exercise restraint.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan’ani expressed Tehran’s concern during a news briefing on Tuesday, following the border conflict earlier in the day which resulted in the death of four Armenian soldiers.  

Kan’ani called for a peaceful solution – through diplomacy – to the dispute between the two sides. The Iranian official said to that end, it was necessary to speed up the conclusion of a peace agreement between the two countries.

Armenia and Azerbaijan traded blame in the wake of new clashes.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said “four people were killed and one injured as a result of fire on Armenian positions from Azerbaijani troops.”

But Azerbaijan’s border guards said this was a “riposte” to a “provocation” Armenian troops committed on Monday, which, according to Baku, left one Azerbaijani soldier injured.

Azerbaijan’s defense ministry also said Armenian forces had opened fire twice late Monday at positions on Kokhanabi village in the Tovuz region. Yerevan denied the allegation, saying the claim “does not align with reality.”

Nagorno-Karabakh has been at the center of a dispute between Baku and Yerevan for more than three decades.

Since gaining independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, the two neighboring countries have fought two wars, in 1994 and 2020, over the mountainous territory.

Karabakh, while acknowledged as a part of Azerbaijan by the international community, has a predominantly Armenian population that has persistently opposed Azerbaijani governance since a separatist war in 1994.

Last year, Azerbaijan recaptured Karabakh in a lightning offensive that prompted an exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians.

The latest border skirmish was the first fatal incident since the two sides began negotiating a treaty in 2023 to formally end the conflict.