Azerbaijan has said four of its troops were killed in clashes with Armenia near the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region. The fresh confrontations on Saturday, which also led to the death of an ethnic Armenian soldier, come after Azerbaijan said on Friday that eight troops had been killed in three days of fighting. A leading Azeri military expert earlier this week said that Baku has not suffered such losses in a single burst of hostilities since 1994, when a ceasefire was agreed upon.
The defense ministry in Baku said Saturday, "Armenia's reconnaissance and sabotage groups once again tried to attack Azeri positions at the line of contact" near Nagorno Karabakh.
Azeri troops repelled the overnight attack, forcing Armenian soldiers to retreat, according to the defense ministry. In a statement the ministry said, "As a result of the clash, four Azeri troops died."
Authorities in Nagorno Karabakh for their part said an ethnic Armenian soldier had been killed, and accused Azerbaijan of trying to carry out "sabotage and reconnaissance activities". They claimed three Azeri troops had been killed and seven were injured.
On Saturday, Armenia announced that President Serzh Sarkisian would meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Sochi next week to discuss the crisis.