BAKU, Azerbaijan
Nearly 20 Armenian soldiers have been killed or wounded in border clashes with Azeri soldiers, the Azeri Defense Ministry said on Thursday.
The statement from the ministry said that the Azeri army, "dealt a heavy blow to the Armenian forces," and dismissed reports in the Armenian media that Armenian soldiers caused material damage on the Azeri side.
The statement claimed that the Yerevan government sought to hide the casualties in fear of a public backlash.
Azeri Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said that Armenian soldiers could only survive if they left the territory that they had occupied.
He added that any offensive by Armenian troops on the border would be met by a fatal blow.
On Friday last week, Baku vowed to respond more strongly to the killing of an Azeri soldier in what it says was a ceasefire violation by Armenian troops. Two days before the incident, another Azeri soldier had been killed after an Armenian "sabotage team" attacked an Azeri position.
Armenia and Azerbaijan remain locked in conflict after the 1988 invasion of the Azerbaijan territory of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenia.
Since the end of the war in 1994, the two sides have held talks over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh under the supervision of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Minsk Group.
