Armenia says soldier killed by Azerbaijani shelling

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia says one of its soldiers has been killed by Azerbaijani shelling amid simmering tensions on the border between the two ex-Soviet neighbors. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decades-old dispute over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. It lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. Fierce fighting that erupted in September 2020 ended six weeks later with a Russia-brokered peace deal. Azerbaijan gained control of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh and reclaimed all the regions that were controlled by Armenian forces outside the region. Tensions again escalated last week in the worst clashes since the 2020 hostilities. The Armenian soldier was killed Monday.