Azernews.Az

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry has officially dismissed Armenian media's reports on soldier losses as baseless.

The Ministry said the news reported by the Armenian media about alleged deaths of soldiers in Azerbaijani army were fictitious and divorced from reality.

"Armenian media's alleged reports on our troops' losses during a fire exchange on February 28 are not true," announced Vagif Dargahli, the ministry's spokesman

Meantime, two Armenian soldiers were reported dead as a result of a gunplay on the Line of Contact on the February 28 afternoon.

Artak Aghekyan, 36, and Hayk Baroyan, 20, were killed by Azerbaijani troops in the wake of armed skirmishes.

On March 2, the ministry confirmed that in the past 24 hours, Armenia infringed the ceasefire agreement with Azerbaijan over 50 times, thus forcing Baku to intervene.

Drawn into a conflict it did not initiate, Azerbaijan has warned it would not stand idly while its people's lives are put in harm's way by Armenian soldiers.

Back in 1992, following a violent and bloody conflict, Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts plunging the South Caucasus region into a protracted conflict.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has yet to comply with UN Security Council resolutions calling for the liberation of all occupied territories.