YEREVAN. – Any time when Azerbaijan is firing, the Armenian side must for some time freeze the negotiations over Karabakh, editor of California Courier Harut Sassounian told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“They are shooting at our civilians, and we respond to their shots from time to time. It is wrong to continue so. Either we need to fire a hundred times more, which is not good and will lead to greater tension, or I propose to declare at the highest state level that we cannot negotiate and fight at the same time. We have either to negotiate or to fight,” he said.

Sassounian believes that suspending talks for a year or two will be harmful to Azerbaijan, since they want to get something.

“We have nothing to get. We have liberated our lands and live there. If they continue shooting, we will suspend talks, and they will get nothing,” he said, adding that Azerbaijan is not ready for war.

If the Azerbaijanis were ready for war, they would have attacked immediately, he emphasized.

Press service of the NKR Defense Army reported earlier that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces shelled at one of the northeastern protection areas of the NKR Defense Army unit on Friday at about 5:30pm. The fire was opened from Turkish-made reactive rocket propelled howitzers (TR-107).

Consequently, NKR Defense Army soldiers Norayr Khachatryan (born in 1995), Robert Mkrtchyan (born in 1995), Harut Hakobyan (born in 1997), and Karen Shahinyan (born in 1997) died from shrapnel wounds. There are wounded, too.

Earlier this week three residents of Armenia’s Tavush Region were killed in ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side.