Armenia has attempted to carry out reconnaissance flights over its military positions in the country’s western Lachin in the Karabakh region, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Monday.
The flights involved a quadcopter and took place on Sunday at around 5:40 p.m. local time (1:40 p.m. GMT), the ministry said in a statement.
“Thanks to the vigilance of the Azerbaijan Army Units, the activity of the next detected UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was interfered with via special technical means and it had to leave the area,” it added.
Last week, the Azerbaijani ministry also said that its units in the country’s western Kalbajar region were fired upon by Armenian forces.
Relations between Baku and Yerevan have remained tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions, including Lachin.
Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a 44-day war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and talks on border demarcation.
Last September, Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh following a “counterterrorism operation” in September last year, after which separatist forces in the region surrendered.
Tensions between the two neighboring countries have risen since then, with Baku most recently accusing Yerevan of undertaking “provocative actions” showing its preparations for another war with Azerbaijan in a statement on Thursday.
Armenia defined Azerbaijan’s statement as “unacceptable,” adding that Yerevan “does not have any other goal in terms of defense & security beyond the protection of its internationally recognized territory.”
