STEPANAKERT (Arka)—Twenty-year-old Artsakh serviceman Arsen Karapetyan was killed by Azerbaijani shelling on Tuesday night, the Artsakh Defense Ministry’s press office reported.

 

The Artsakh Defense Army reports that the Azeri military violated the cease fire on the line of contact about 200 times, using 60 mm mortar guns and RPG-7 grenade launchers, on Tuesday night.

Artsakh’s Defense Ministry said it shares the grief of the soldier’s family and expresses its support to the family and the friends of the killed serviceman, according to the press office.

The frontline divisions of the Artsakh Defense Army retaliated against the attacks and regained control of their positions, says the report.

The Artsakh conflict started in 1988 when the prevailingly Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh declared secession from Azerbaijan following independence from the Soviet Union and during a period of massacres and pogroms against Armenians by Azeris throughout Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1991, a referendum was held in Nagorno-Karabakh where 99.89% voted for independence from Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan responded by large-scale military operations against the people of Artsakh which eventually broke out into full scale war and led to the loss of Azeri control over Nagorno-Karabakh itself, as well as over seven adjoining areas. About 25 to 30 thousand people were killed and about a million were displaced during the war.

A trilateral cease-fire agreement was signed on May 12, 2004, and has been followed since then. The ongoing Karabakh peace process started in 1992 under auspices of OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia and France