“They were firing into the air, over the village,” Vahan Zakian, the head of the Khoznavar village administration, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“We don't see the gunshots, we just hear them,” Zakian said by phone.
According to Kamela Ohanian, a resident of the nearby village of Khnatsakh, the automatic gunfire was less intense than in previous days. “But they still shot,” she said.
Local residents have reported nightly gunfire for over two weeks amid Azerbaijani allegations of Armenian truce violations along the border between the two countries. The Armenian military has flatly denied the allegations, saying that Baku has not come up with any factual evidence of them.
Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov met with his top military commanders on Saturday to discuss the “regular shootings” from Armenian army positions. He reportedly ordered Azerbaijani army units to be ready “to respond promptly to any provocation.”
Azerbaijan began accusing Armenia of violating the ceasefire regime on a daily basis just a few days after the two sides finalized on March 13 a bilateral peace treaty. Armenian opposition figures and pundits have suggested that the accusations are aimed at preparing the ground for a military attack on Armenia or forcing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to make more concessions.
Yerevan already made a number of concessions to remove the remaining disagreements on the text of the draft treaty. It has repeatedly appealed to the Azerbaijani side to sign the treaty. Baku has set multiple conditions for that, notably a change of Armenia’s constitution.
The Armenian Defense Ministry on Monday continued to downplay the cross-border gunfire reported by Syunik villagers, saying that it is largely “irregular” and “off-target.”
“When there are targeted shootings, such as on March 31 in the direction of a residential house in Khnatsakh, the Ministry of Defense properly reports it,” a spokesman told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Citing unnamed local sources, Mesrop Arakelian, a leader of the opposition Aprelu Yerkir party, insisted, however, that the weekend shootings were more “intensive” than is acknowledged by the ministry.
“This is an attempt to hide the real situation on the ground once again in order not to harm Nikol Pashinian's ‘peace agenda,’” claimed Arakelian.