Azerbaijan's actions are provocative and aim to nullify the progress made during the negotiations in Washington, from May 1 to 4. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stat this at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting of the Armenian government.

According to him, today's provocation is aimed at disrupting the negotiations scheduled for Sunday in Brussels in a trilateral format and on June 1 in Chisinau in a five-party format.

"Experience shows that Azerbaijan needs the negotiation process only to get a reason for escalation [of tension] and war, and escalations are used exclusively to nullify any progress registered in the negotiations; this is happening now," Pashinyan said.

According to the Armenian PM, the Azerbaijani defense ministry statements Wednesday about the violation of the ceasefire by the Armenian army are fictitious, and such information is invented to aggravate the situation.

"If escalating the situation is not Azerbaijan's predilection, any local incident can be quickly resolved by verifying information, exchanging [information], and reaching preventive agreements with existing connections. The previous day, nothing like this happened for a simple reason: no incident was registered, and the Azerbaijani disinformation machine invented the news with a back date in order to escalate the situation, and the main purpose of the escalation of the situation is to nullify the negotiation process and disrupt the course of further negotiations," the Armenian PM said.

Earlier, Armenian News-NEWS.am reported that from 6am Thursday, the units of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces opened fire from artillery and mortars at the Armenian positions located in the direction of Sotk.

The units of Armenia’s Armed Forces are taking corresponding protective and preventive measures.

The Armenian side has four wounded.

As of 10am, the tension in the direction of Sotk has decreased considerably.