YEREVAN: An Azerbaijani sniper shot dead an Armenian soldier, the latest casualty in violence along the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region's volatile frontline, rebel officials said Monday.

"A Karabakh army serviceman was mortally wounded on Sunday evening by an Azerbaijani sharpshooter," the separatist defence ministry said in a statement.

The death comes after several months of unprecedented violence along the line dividing the warring sides and takes the number of people reported killed on both sides this year to 23.

Yerevan and Baku have been locked in a dispute over Azerbaijan's Nagorny Karabakh region since a bloody war in the early 1990.

APP