Their daily reports of such automatic gunfire began a week after Armenia and Azerbaijan bridged their remaining differences on the text of a bilateral peace treaty. Despite the progress in peace talks, the Azerbaijani military accused Armenian forces throughout last week of violating the ceasefire at various sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The Armenian side denied the accusations.
People living in the neighboring Syunik villages of Khoznavar and Khnatsakh have since been on edge over Azerbaijani gunshots which they say are mainly fired into the air from around 10 p.m. until the early hours of the next morning.
“We are primarily worried about our children, who get scared,” Manushak Soghomonian, a woman from Khnatsakh, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
Soghomonian said the village school is located just 100 meters from the nearest Azerbaijani army position. She said she and other parents therefore wonder whether they should send their children back to the school after the end of a spring break in early April.
Defense Minister Suren Papikian continued to play down the significance of the reported gunfire when he spoke in the Armenian parliament on Wednesday.
“There are cases of shooting along the border but they are not directed towards Armenia,” Papikian said, justifying his ministry’s failure to issue official statements on them.
“The way to solve the problem is diplomatic,” he added without elaborating.
Seyran Ohanian, a former defense minister leading the opposition Hayastan alliance’s parliamentary group, deplored the Armenian Defense Ministry’s reluctance to criticize Azerbaijan. He said Baku is now trying to exert “psychological pressure” on Armenia’s population and force the Armenian government to make more concessions.
Azerbaijani officials have effectively dismissed Armenian calls for a quick signing of the peace treaty finalized by the two sides on March 13. They say that Yerevan must first meet a number of conditions, notably a change of Armenia’s constitution which they say contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.