SEVEN Azerbaijani military personnel have been killed and 10 more wounded in border clashes with Armenian forces, Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry said yesterday.

Armenian officials reported one casualty and said that 13 of their troops had been captured during Tuesday’s hostilities, with another 24 missing.

The clashes appear to be the worst outbreak of hostilities between the two countries since a six-week war last year over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh killed some 6,600 people.

Armenia’s Defence Ministry accused Azerbaijan’s military of opening fire on Armenian positions, while Azerbaijan’s government claimed that Armenia had staged a “large-scale provocation” on the border.

The fighting ended on Tuesday evening after Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke by phone with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts and urged them to call it off.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the border clashes.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads for decades over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that lies within Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenian forces since a separatist war there ended in 1994.