YEREVAN, August 16. /TASS/. The Armenian Defense Ministry has dismissed as untrue reports by Azerbaijan’s top brass alleging that the republic’s military units opened fire in the western sector of the border area.
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry reported earlier that Armenian forces had shelled positions of its army in Nakhchivan in the small hours of Friday morning. Last evening, too, Azerbaijan said that its army positions in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic had been fired upon from Armenian territory. According to the country’s defense agency, Azerbaijani units "took appropriate measures in response."
"The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s report alleging that at around 3:20 a.m. on August 16 (11:20 p.m. GMT on Thursday - TASS) units from the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia opened fire toward Azerbaijani positions in the western part of the border area is not true," the Armenian ministry said in a statement.
The Armenian Defense Ministry recounted that, through diplomatic channels, the office of the republic’s prime minister had proposed establishing a bilateral mechanism for investigating ceasefire violations.