Armenia "has never threatened to strike any object in Azerbaijan"

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia has never officially declared that it would strike any strategic or non-strategic object in Azerbaijan, head of the Crisis Information Center, former Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan told reporters on Thursday, July 16.

The Azerbaijani side, meanwhile, has officially spoken about hitting the Metsamor nuclear power plant in response to some non-official statements, Hovhannisyan added.

Azerbaijan earlier threatened to strike the Metsamor nuclear power plant in Armenia, amid renewed violence on the border between the two countries. Defense Ministry spokesman Vagif Dargahli said "the Armenian side should not forget that modern missile systems in the arsenal of our army allows us to hit the Metsamor NPP with high accuracy, which could lead to a major disaster for Armenia."

Hovhannisyan said the statement of the Azerbaijani side is a crime and added that the Armenian Armed Forces do not even target a single home in an Azerbaijani village.

On July 12, Azerbaijan launched two failed infiltration attempts on the border with Armenia whose troops immediately identified the saboteurs and thwarted them back to their positions. Since the next morning, the Azerbaijani military has been firing on the Armenian positions, also using large caliber grenade launchers and combat drones to target civilian homes in several border settlements. Four servicemen of the Armenian army have been killed, 20 others and one civilian have been wounded, while Azerbaijan has reported 12 deaths.

In the wee hours of July 16, around 100 Azerbaijani troops launched another infiltration attempt, but were against thwarted back to their posts after suffering major losses. Several hours later, they began to shell Armenian villages, damaging as many as 10 houses, a kindergarten and other facilities overnight.