BAKU. June 8 (Interfax) - The Armenian authorities are immediately responsible for the latest events at the contact line, Elnur Aslanov, director of the Azeri presidential administration's Political Analysis and Information Support Department, told journalists in Friday.
"Armenians have chosen to continue their unconstructive policy, thus hampering a peaceful settlement of the conflict. All this proves once again that Armenia, unlike Azerbaijan, is interested in maintaining this status quo, which, for its part, poses a direct threat to security all over the region and creates obstacles for the region's economic development," he said.
Azerbaijan has said more than once that maintaining this status quo is unacceptable for region, but the Armenian authorities have been avoiding peace talks, Aslanov said, adding that this situation poses a threat to the whole region.
Tensions have been running high near the contact line between the Azeri and Armenian Armed Forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone in the past few days.
The Azeri Defense Ministry claims that Armenian soldiers made several attempts to cross the line, but their attacks were rebuffed. Five Azeri soldiers were killed and several more were injured.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said a few days ago that Armenia adheres to a peace settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict but will react to every destabilization attempt along the contact line with Azerbaijan.
"We do not want an escalation of tensions but we will react to every provocative action against our citizens, borders and Karabakh," Sargsyan said.
The recent escalations of tensions make Russia concerned. "We are alarmed by reports about escalating tension in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. We are particularly concerned over a sharp increase in casualties among soldiers as a result of ceasefire violations in the beginning of this month. There have been casualties among civilians too," Russian Foreign Ministry official spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.