'Armenia opens fire, violates Karabakh ceasefire'

Armenia has violated the terms of a ceasefire with Azerbaijan, opening fire on in three separate locations and endangering the approval of a deal, which could end a century of hostilities.

Armenian soldiers opened fire on Azerbaijani territories from three border villages on Monday, Azerbaijan's defense ministry said.

The ministry added that Azerbaijani troops responded the fire. No causalities have been reported.

The two neighbors have repeatedly accused one another of ceasefire violations near Nagorno-Karabakh since the late 1980s.

The region belongs to Azerbaijan, but has a largely ethnic Armenian population.

It has been almost 21 years since Baku and Yerevan engaged in an armed conflict over the 4,400-square-kilometer (1,700-square-mile) mountainous Karabakh region.

After six years of intensive fighting, about 16 percent of Azerbaijan's land was occupied and over million people were displaced, while some 40,000 people from both sides were killed.

The conflict, known as the Nagorno-Karabakh war, which broke out in February 1988, ended in a ceasefire on May 16, 1994, but there has been no agreement so far to turn the ceasefire into a permanent peace treaty.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116454§ionid=351020406.