Armenian Soldier Killed Another Wounded on the Border With Nakhichevan

YEREVAN — One Armenian soldier was killed and another wounded on Friday on frontline positions on Armenia’s border with Nakhichevan exclave.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said the two conscripts, Norayr Petrosian and Artur Asoyan, were shot at an army outpost in the southeastern Syunik province bordering Azerbaijani controled Nakhichevan. The ministry said they both were rushed to a hospital in the nearby Armenian town of Agarak. Doctors there failed to save Petrosian’s life, it said in a statement.

The statement added that military investigators are taking “urgent actions” to clarify the circumstances of the incident.

A Defense Ministry source suggested that the soldiers came under cross-border fire from Azerbaijani army positions.

The Azerbaijani military was quick to rule out such possibility. A statement by the Defense Ministry in Baku claimed that Armenian soldiers serving in the area close to Iran shot at each other.

Unlike other sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, the Syunik-Nakhichevan area has seen few deadly skirmishes over the past decade. Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian inspected Armenian defense fortifications there as recently as in late July.