YEREVAN, September 16. /TASS/. Armenia has informed co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, the United States and France) - the international mediators for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement - about an escalation at the northeastern section of the border with Azerbaijan, Armenian Defense Minister David Tonoyan said at the national parliament on Wednesday.

"Tensions have escalated in the past two weeks," he said. "We informed the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group about the situation."

Earlier on Wednesday, Armenia’s Defense Ministry said that a soldier was killed in shelling by Azerbaijani forces.

Tensions escalated on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on July 12. Both Baku and Yerevan traded blame for the clashes and casualties. However, since July 17 the situation on the border has been relatively calm, according to both sides.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.