BAKU. Nov 17 (Interfax) - The OSCE mission will do another round of monitoring along the line of contact between Azeri and Armenian troops on November 18, the Azeri Defense Ministry press service said on Monday.
Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, and his field assistants will go on the monitoring mission near the village of Merzili in the Agdam district of Azerbaijan.
The OSCE workers will study the situation in the Karabakh conflict zone amid the recent escalation of tensions along the line of contact.
The Azeri Defense Ministry press service said that a Mil Mi-24 helicopter of the Armenian Armed Forces flying 1,700 meters northeast of the village of Kengerli in the Agdam district of Azerbaijan at 1:45 p.m. local time on November 12 took a battle course and tried to attack Azeri army positions. The Azeri servicemen returned fire and shot down the enemy helicopter.
In turn, the Armenian side said that Azerbaijan had shot down a Nagorno-Karabakh army Mil Mi-24 helicopter while it was on a training mission. Reportedly, its three crewmembers were killed. The Armenian side has been unable to reach the crash site because of ongoing shelling of the area by Azeri forces.
A ceasefire regime between Azerbaijan and Armenia was put into place in May 1994. The OSCE organizes regular monitoring missions with the assistance of the personal envoy of its chairman-in-office seeking to verify the sides' compliance with the terms of the truce.