The Armenian Defense Ministry said Azerbaijani forces opened fire at its positions at multiple sections of the border. It reported an “active movement” of Azerbaijani military vehicles in one of those areas.
“It is noteworthy that during the night most of the gunshots fired by the Azerbaijani armed forces were non-targeted and sporadic,” the ministry said in a statement.
The statement suggested that they tried to provoke the Armenian side to take “countermeasures” that could be used for substantiating the “recent Azerbaijani disinformation” about Armenian truce violations. Armenian troops “did not take actions contributing to further escalation,” it said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned Azerbaijan’s “provocative actions.” It insisted that Armenia is “not interested in the escalation of the situation in the region.”
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said, meanwhile, that its border troops came under cross-border Armenian fire on Friday night. It did not specify those locations.
The two sides already accused each other of violating the ceasefire regime earlier this week. That followed that Azerbaijani claims that Armenia is massing troops along the border in possible preparation for “military provocations” there. The Armenian military dismissed them. An EU monitoring mission deployed on the Armenian side of the frontier likewise denied any Armenian military buildup there.
Tension on the border began rising after Baku denounced U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for deciding to hold a trilateral meeting with Pashinian in Brussels on Friday. It accused the Western powers of siding with Armenia.
Both Blinken and von der Leyen telephoned Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev ahead of the Brussels talks. Aliyev insisted on Friday that the talks are “directed against Azerbaijan.”