Azerbaijan Opens Fire During OSCE Monitoring Near Armenia’s Chinari Village

YEREVAN — The OSCE monitoring group was unable to conduct monitoring works on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border due to Azerbaijani gunfire in the direction of Armenia’s Chinari village in northern Tavush province, the Armenian Defense Ministry stated

The ministry spokesman, Artsrun Hovannisian, said that Azerbaijani forces opened fire towards officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe while they monitored the ceasefire regime along the two countries border. The OSCE officials travelled to that area on a regular monitoring mission. Several other OSCE observers were due to assess the situation at that section of the heavily militarized frontier from the Azerbaijani side.

“The Azerbaijani side fired at the monitoring team near the village of Chinari,” Hovannisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). “The monitoring team was unable to carry out its mission for a fairly long time.”

According to Hovannisian, the longtime chief of the mission, Andrzej Kasprzyk, was among the OSCE field observers who allegedly came under fire near Chinari.

Earlier Armenian foreign ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan tweeted on the matter: “Azerbaijani armed forces opened fire during OSCE monitoring on the state border with Armenia in Tavush province”.

The OSCE and, in particular, its special observer mission tasked with monitoring ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone issued no statements on the reported incident as of late afternoon.