Several dead in a confrontation at the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia:

The Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan accused Armenia of attacking its positions near Nagorno-Karabakh separatist territory claimed by Yerevan, a clash that killed three soldiers and two Armenian Azerbaijani military. “The Armenian forces attempted to attack [the Azerbaijani positions] near the village of Tchaïly in the region of Terter, August 31,” the ministry said in a statement.

Clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis are held regularly around the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan to Armenian majority. The Ministry of Defence of the region for its part accused Azerbaijan of having launched
the attack, indicating that one of its soldiers had been wounded and seven Azerbaijani soldiers were either wounded or killed. “On August 31, Azerbaijan has once again attacked the armed forces of Karabakh. A soldier of our camp was injured and seven soldiers of the Azerbaijani side have been killed or wounded,” said a spokesman for the department.

Attached to Azerbaijan during the Soviet period, the territory declared its independence, not recognized by the international community after a war that has made thirty thousand dead and hundreds of thousands of refugees between 1988 and 1994. A cease-fire was signed in 1994, Baku and Yerevan are unable to agree on the status of the region remains a source of tension in the South Caucasus, an area strategically located between Iran , Russia and Turkey. Azerbaijan, accusing Armenia of blocking negotiations, has often threatened in recent years to regain control by force its separatist region.