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The situation on the Line of Contact between Artsakh and Azerbaijan was relatively stable over the past year, the Artsakh Defense Ministry said in a statement, summing up the frontline developments in 2018.

According to the statement, as a result of the large-scale engineering and border strengthening measures as well as the installation of video surveillance devices along the contact line, the possibility of sabotage infiltration attempts by Azerbaijan has almost completely disappeared. 

“The only exception was the January 25 incident, when the Defense Army frontline units detected and thwarted an Azerbaijani infiltration attempt at a military outpost in the southeastern section of the contact line, near Kuropatkino village,” the ministry said. “The adversary didn’t take similar steps throughout the year.”

The relative calm was further enhanced after the September 28 meeting of Armenia’s Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on the sidelines of the CIS heads of state summit, when the parties agreed on reducing contact line tensions and establishing operational communication.

“Thus, the Azerbaijani military breached the ceasefire on the contact line applying, besides firearms, various types of grenade launchers from March to August, whereas they only applied firearms during the period that followed,” the statement says.

Overall, Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire on the contact line nearly 10,000 times in 2018, firing more than 97,000 shots towards the Armenian defense positions from firearms of different calibers and various types of grenade launchers (25 shots).

“In 2018, the Defense Army’s frontline troops confidently controlled the situation along the entire contact line and fulfilled their mission with honor, ensuring the inviolability of the Artsakh borders and maintaining peace for the people,” the statement concludes.