The Armenian Defense Ministry on Friday refuted Azerbaijan’s claim that the Azerbaijani soldier, captured on Thursday, lost his way and accidentally crossed into Armenian territory.
“At 6:00 in the morning a servicemen should either be sleeping or performing his military duty. But a serviceman who crosses into enemy territory with a white flag in his hands does not look like someone who’s lost his way,” said Artsrun Ovannisyan, a spokesman for the Armenian defense minister.
Thursday’s incident in the conflict zone triggered a number of contradictory statements from Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have been engaged in a territorial dispute over the predominantly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh since the late 1980s.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry initially accused Armenia of violating the ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, saying that an Azerbaijani conscript received a gunshot wound near the Azerbaijani-Armenian contact line in the Gedabek District on Thursday morning.
Armenia denied the accusations, saying that the 19-year-old conscript, identified as Firuz Faradzhov, crossed the border and surrendered without offering any resistance at 6:00 Moscow time [2:00 GMT] on Thursday.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry responded with a statement later in the day saying that the conscript was captured by Armenian troops when he lost his way and accidentally crossed into Armenian territory.
The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted in the late 1980s, when Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed independence from Azerbaijan. It is estimated to have left more than 30,000 people dead on both sides between 1988 and 1994. The sovereign status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is not recognized by any state.
