YEREVAN, October 2. /TASS/. Military operations along the entire line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh carried on into Friday morning, with Armenia’s anti-aircraft systems downing a plane and a drone belonging to Azerbaijan’s air force, Shushan Stepanyan, spokesperson for the Armenian Defense Ministry’s press service wrote on her Facebook page.
"At around 07:55, air defense units of the Armenian forces shot down one enemy aircraft and one drone in the north-eastern direction of Artsakh. Fighting continues along the Artsakh border. The attempts of the enemy to break through the defense of our troops in separate parts failed․" she commented.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July. Azerbaijan and Armenia have imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict have reported casualties, among them civilians.
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.