Azerbaijan soldiers killed in Karabakh fighting

MOSCOW/BAKU: Azerbaijan said several of its soldiers had been killed during fighting in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as Armenia and Azerbaijan blamed each other for an outbreak of violence.

Bloody clashes erupted on Saturday between Azerbaijani forces and Armenian separatists, claiming the lives of several Azerbaijani servicemen, Baku and rebel officials said.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces had “suffered losses” when its positions were assaulted by Armenian troops early Saturday.

Armenian forces did not suffer any casualties in the clashes and that the Azerbaijani soldiers were killed when they launched an attack, according to a statement issued by the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Ministry.

Nagorno-Karabakh is in Azerbaijan, but since a separatist war ended in 1994 it has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military. An outbreak of fighting in April killed about 75 soldiers from the two sides.

Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a protracted conflict over the disputed region, and frequent exchanges of fire nearly spiraled into all-out war last year.

The ministry said “Armenian forces attempted an intrusion into Azerbaijani territory along the Karabakh frontline” in the early hours of Saturday.