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The situation across the Line of Contact between Artsakh and Azerbaijan remained relatively stable throughout 2019, the Defense Army of the Artsakh Republic said in a statement, summing up the year 2019.

According to the released statement, large-scale engineering works implemented on daily basis as well as continuous process of installing surveillance cameras and other equipment at the military posts have significantly increased the safety of the personnel on combat duty, while the possibility of Azerbaijani sabotage infiltration attempts has virtually eliminated.

According to the operative data of the Defense Army, overall, the Azerbaijani forces breached the ceasefire regime for 9,000 times over the past year, 85.000 shots were fired toward the direction of Armenian troops from firearms of different caliber. In 2019, the adversary also applied 60 mm mortars (13 shells) and automatic grenade launcher (32 shells).

It is noted that the number of ceasefire violations and shots fired by Azerbaijani forces in 2019 has been the lowest since 2010.

“Although the year 2019 marked the 25th anniversary of the establishment of a ceasefire regime between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia, the OSCE Minsk Group which deals with the conflict settlement, couldn’t record progress in the peace process as official Baku denies not only the fundamental principles of the conflict settlement but also ignores the confidence building measures proposed by the Co-Chairs,” the statement said in a part.

“Amid the absence of the  progress in peace talks, the Azerbaijani statements at the highest level about solving the NK conflict through military means were counteracted by with the strength and fighting capacity of the Defense Army which had a dictating role on the Line of contact throughout 2019 to ensure the inviolability of the Artsakh Republic borders and the life of its people,” the statement added.