Four Armenian soldiers killed in new border flare-up with Azerbaijan

Armenia says four of its soldiers have been killed after Azerbaijan fired into its territory. 

It's the first fatal exchange between the two countries since Azerbaijan re-took control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region last September, after violence that left hundreds dead.

'Provocation' 

Azerbaijan says its troops were retaliating in self-defense, describing what it called a "provocation" by Armenian forces that left an Azerbaijani soldier wounded. "The military and political leadership of Armenia is fully responsible for the incident," Azerbaijan's border service said in a statement.

The attack, in Armenia's southern Syunik Province, comes just days after Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev won a fifth term in office, in recent elections.

Now Armenia has accused Baku of seeking to escalate tensions with a view to a new ground offensive into the southern Caucasus nation.

Southern corridor 

In January, less than three months after Baku launched its assault to retake control of Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev called for the reopening of the Zangezur corridor. This long-disused Soviet railroad bisects southern Armenia, linking Baku to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan. 

Aliyev warned "Armenia will remain in an eternal deadlock… if the route I mentioned is not opened."

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Proposals by Yerevan for a land route staffed by Armenian border and customs checks have been dismissed by Baku. Construction work on a vehicle highway, staffed by mainly Turkish contractors, is already underway in Azerbaijan itself. 

However the Zangezur Corridor project has also been opposed by Iran, which fears of losing access to Armenia and destinations further north. Plans by Tehran for an alternative route through Iranian territory appear to have stalled. 

'Restraint'

The sudden upsurge in border violence has been described as "alarming news" by former regional power Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has appealed for both sides to "exercise restraint."  

Russia maintains a small contingent of ground troops in Armenia. However, after the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the sudden displacement of its 80,000 ethnic Armenian inhabitants, Yerevan has said it is actively seeking new defense partners in Europe and elsewhere. 

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said Moscow could no longer be considered Armenia's primary defense partner. "We need to understand who we can really maintain military-technical and defense relations with," he told Armenian Public Radio last month. 

Yerevan fears that in the event of a further conflict, Russia may instead give support to Baku, seeing the Zangezur corridor as a southern route to help it circumvent Western sanctions over its ongoing military campaign in Ukraine.

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