Land Mine Injures Azerbaijani Officer On Border With Armenia-Controlled Region

The explosion of a land mine along the border between Azerbaijan and the Armenia-controlled district of Agdam has severely injured an Azerbaijani army officer.

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said on December 4 that Captain Parviz Ismailov was hospitalized.

The incident occurred as a special envoy of the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was scheduled to monitor the border in order to familiarize himself with the situation.

The western part of Azerbaijan's Agdam district was captured by Armenian separatist forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 1993.

It has been used as a buffer zone by the Armenian military ever since.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in conflict for decades over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has a majority-Armenian population.

A fragile cease-fire has been in place since 1994.

Based on reporting by apa.az and Interfax