YEREVAN—The Armenian military vowed strong retaliation on Tuesday after Azeri forces opened fire on a convoy of military vehicles in the border town of Tavush in Armenia, killing 19-year-old soldier Garik Poghosian and injuring three others.
According to Armenia’s Defense Ministry, the incident took place between 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. local time along the Berd-Ijevan highway.
The three wounded soldiers were identified as Privates Artur Andranikyan (born in 1994), Arayik Zhamharyan (born in 1994), and Martin Petrosyan (born in 1994) who sustained gunshot wounds.
“The Armenian Defense Ministry is declaring that this criminal action by the enemy will not remain unanswered and that those who unleashed this provocation will once again pay the consequences,” read a statement released by the Defense Ministry.
The office of Andrzej Kasprzyk, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, was informed of the incident.
Last week, a scheduled monitoring of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh border by the OSCE Mission in Hardut was suspended because of machine gun fire from the Azeri side in the direction of Karabakh border positions.
The shots at the border, often referred to as the “line of contact” were registered by the monitoring groups of both sides.
Kasprzyk, who headed the mission from the Armenian side, decided to suspend the monitoring for security considerations.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan border at Tavush, the site of Tuesday’s incident, has seen an increase in sniper fire from the Azeri side. Most notably in June of last year severe attacks were launched by Azeri forces on the day of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Armenia.
the azer people all feel a deep hate and sense of revenge toward the armenians. i hope history wont repeat itself even if armenians are NOT in the wrong !
Go to hell, Azerbaijan. I hate your barbaric country with all my heart.
Obviously since this is always ongoing, Armenia is too weak to do anything about it. If it wasn’t weak, this would have stopped a long time ago, and Azerbaijan would have given up more territory. I don’t believe all the posters from the past who claim Armenia is doing a lot of retaliation which the Azeris don’t publish. The fact remains, if that was true, and Armenia was effectively dealing with her enemy, then Azerbaijan would not be firing a single bullet. Sorry, I am not impressed with Armenian leadership in the least bit.
One should not Trade Sheeps for Wolves !.
Action always beat Reaction.
Retaliation is not Enuff.
Extermination is.
Arn.Sweden.
ARMENIa shod bombard their villages or military camps in as response we need to stand up and show them we Armenians are no joke
Armenia shouls be again what it was before joining the soviet union
We need strong and brave leaders like garegin njdeh and andranik, armenia was once faired by others,
We should not be afraid of turks, turjs should be afraid os us we should be the one to threathing them with war
We are the victems and we lost our land our poeple
And turks are acring like they were the victems of the genocide.
We Armenians should change our attitude and emmbease our selfs.
Its not alaways the strongest that win or strong weapons, but people
What do you mean by “we”
If you leave outside of Armenia, you can’t refer yourself as “we”, if you live in Armenia, then I respect you because you stand next to the problem, not 10000 kilometers away like most Armenians and all they do is just talk.
Next round around Armenians should try to grab some of Azerbaijans Oil and Gas platforms, not just empty land. The world only listens to Oil and Gas.