YEREVAN, June 2. /TASS/. The Armenian Defense Ministry has slammed a statement by the Azerbaijani military agency claiming that the Armenian armed forces attempted to carry out an incursion into the country’s territory as disinformation, the Armenian ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has spread more disinformation claiming that 40 Armenian servicemen crossed the Azerbaijani border late on June 1, after which Azerbaijani armed units ‘forced them to retreat to their initial positions’." This sort of disinformation is issued by the Azerbaijani military and political leadership to impress the international community," the statement reads.
The Armenian ministry also underscored that "the national armed forces did not cross the border with Azerbaijan on June 1 or previous days."
Following the end of military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone last fall, when seven regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh fell under Azerbaijan’s control, the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan moved to the immediate vicinity of the Syunik and Gegharkunik Provinces. The situation there exacerbated on May 12. Then, the Armenian Defense Ministry announced that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces attempted to carry out "certain operations" in the Syunik Province in a bid to "redefine the border." The Azerbaijani forces ceased their activities after the Armenian Armed Forces took measures in response.
However, both parties regularly report new incidents. On May 27, Azerbaijan announced that it had captured six Armenian servicemen during an attempt to cross the border. The Armenian side confirmed that the servicemen were captured yet emphasized that at the time they were involved in engineering works in the border area of Armenia’s Gegharkunik Province. Later, Yerevan said that it had turned to the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with regards to the escalation of the situation on the Armenian-Azeri border. In their turn, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh put forward their de-escalation plan, which involves the parties withdrawing troops and beginning the process of demarcating and delimiting the state border with the assistance of the Minsk Group.