Summary Azerbaijan reports exchange of fire, no word of casualtiesArmenian PM calls Blinken, Macron, Scholz and RaisiAzerbaijan condemns vote in Karabakh, calls it puppet regimeSept 9 (Reuters) - Azerbaijan's defence ministry said on Saturday that Armenian forces had fired on its troops overnight, and that Azerbaijan army units took "retaliatory measures".
It said Armenian units opened small arms fire on Azerbaijani soldiers in Sadarak in the north of Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan that borders Armenia, Turkey and Iran.
Reuters could not independently verify the reported incident, which came against the background of rising tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan in recent days.
The government said Pashinyan told Blinken and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi that tensions were rising on the border and Azerbaijan was concentrating troops around the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In a statement, Azerbaijan's foreign ministry called the ethnic Armenian leadership of Karabakh a "puppet separatist regime" and said the vote was illegal.
Persons:
Blinken, Macron, Scholz, Nikol Pashinyan, Antony Blinken, Pashinyan, Ebrahim Raisi, Ilham Aliyev, Armenpress, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Nailia Bagirova, Mark Trevelyan, Felix, Peter Graff
Organizations:
Raisi, Armenian, U.S, Karabakh, Thomson
Locations:
Azerbaijan, Raisi Azerbaijan, Karabakh, Sadarak, Nakhchivan, Armenia, Turkey, Iran, France, Germany, Nagorno, Baku, State, Soviet Union, Republic of Azerbaijan