One Soldier Killed, 3 Wounded after Azeri Attack
YEREVAN—The Armenian military vowed strong retaliation on Tuesday after Azeri forces opened fire on a convoy of military vehicles in the border town of Tavush in Armenia, killing 19-year-old soldier Garik Poghosian and injuring three others.
According to Armenia’s Defense Ministry, the incident took place between 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. local time along the Berd-Ijevan highway.
The three wounded soldiers were identified as Privates Artur Andranikyan (born in 1994), Arayik Zhamharyan (born in 1994), and Martin Petrosyan (born in 1994) who sustained gunshot wounds.
“The Armenian Defense Ministry is declaring that this criminal action by the enemy will not remain unanswered and that those who unleashed this provocation will once again pay the consequences,” read a statement released by the Defense Ministry.
The office of Andrzej Kasprzyk, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, was informed of the incident.
Last week, a scheduled monitoring of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh border by the OSCE Mission in Hardut was suspended because of machine gun fire from the Azeri side in the direction of Karabakh border positions.
The shots at the border, often referred to as the “line of contact” were registered by the monitoring groups of both sides.
Kasprzyk, who headed the mission from the Armenian side, decided to suspend the monitoring for security considerations.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan border at Tavush, the site of Tuesday’s incident, has seen an increase in sniper fire from the Azeri side. Most notably in June of last year severe attacks were launched by Azeri forces on the day of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Armenia.