Armenia Army Conduct Drills on Basis of April's Hostilities in Karabakh

The Armed Forces of Armenia have conducted drills based on episodes and details of fighting in the disputed Karabakh region in early April, the country's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

YEREVAN (Sputnik) — The violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway region with a predominantly Armenian population, escalated on April 2. While Baku and Yerevan accused each other of provoking the hostilities, the sides to the conflict succeeded in reaching a ceasefire agreement on April 5, which has been followed by near-daily reports of truce violations.

"Units of the Armenian Armed Forces' first army corps have worked out during strategic drills specifics and scenes of April's hostilities in the Karabakh conflict zone," the statement read.

According to the statement, the units involved in the maneuvers performed tasks in conditions as close as possible to those during the real-life fighting.

Summing up the drills, Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan has welcomed the high level of fast orientation in the situation and the professional actions of military personnel.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988, when the autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, before the latter proclaimed independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The warring sides agreed to a cessation of hostilities in 1994.