Three people died, officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said on Wednesday. Azerbaijan confirmed the shooting down an Armenian military helicopter.

"On November 12, an MI-24 combat helicopter attempted to attack positions of the Azerbaijani army near Agdam district," the defense ministry in Baku announced in a statement on Wednesday.

"The helicopter has been shot down by Azerbaijani army," the ministry reported, adding that the debris fell on Karabakh territory.

Azerbaijan considers Karabakh to be illegally occupied by Armenians ever since separatist authorities backed by Yerevan seized control of the region after six years of fighting that left an estimated 30,000 dead.

Recent surge in tensions

The two factions had abided a ceasefire since 1994, but tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have risen in recent months, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Azerbaijani and Armenian soldiers in the south Caucasus region.

Separatist authorities in Karabakh said a firefight that began after the helicopter downing incident had continued.

The territory's defense ministry reported that Azerbaijani forces had downed their helicopter "while (it was) conducting a training flight as part of military drills."

The ministry added: "The enemy continues to intensively fire in the direction of the incident's site with different caliber small arms."

mkg/ipj (Reuters, AFP, AP)