Throughout last week the Azerbaijani military accused Armenian forces of violating the ceasefire at various sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The accusations strongly denied by Yerevan followed official announcements that the two sides have essentially finalized a bilateral peace treaty after years of negotiation. Armenian commentators suggested that Baku may thus be preparing the ground for military action against Armenia or trying to clinch more Armenian concessions.
Although Baku apparently stopped alleging Armenian ceasefire violations at the weekend, residents of two villages in the southeastern Syunik province, Khoznavar and Khnatsakh, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that there has been intense automatic gunfire from nearby Azerbaijani army positions in recent days.
“They opened fire at 10 o’clock last night, then at 2 and also at 4 in the morning,” said Roman Grigorian, a Khoznavar farmer. “They also shot at us when we were working in the field yesterday. We stopped work for one or two hours.”
“There has been continuous shooting for the last five nights,” said Manushak Soghomonian, a Khnatsakh resident. “They start at 10:20 p.m. [and keep shooting] until 5:30 a.m. Red [tracer] bullets are flying over the village. The people are scared.”
“They shoot into the air, towards the mountains,” the woman added by phone.
Davit Ghulunts, the head of a local community comprising Khnatsakh, Khoznavar and several other villages, refused to comment on the claims.
Responding to these and other reports, the Armenian Defense Ministry acknowledged that “gunshots are sometimes recorded along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.” But it insisted that they “do not target the territory of the Republic of Armenia.”
“In such cases, the Armenian Defense Ministry does not issue statements about the violation of the ceasefire regime,” it added in a statement.
Speaking to journalists on March 21, Defense Minister Suren Papikian did not explicitly deny reports that Armenian army units deployed outside another border village came under intense cross-border fire overnight. Papikian insisted that there are no clear indications yet of an imminent Azerbaijani invasion of Armenia. Critics said the Armenian government is reluctant to admit that the unilateral concessions made by it will not end the conflict with Azerbaijan anytime soon.
Baku makes the signing of the peace treaty conditional on Yerevan meeting more Azerbaijani conditions, notably a change of Armenia’s constitution.