Armenia, Azerbaijan trade accusations over skirmishes near Nagorno-Karabakh

The Associated Press
03/10/05 16:04 EST

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities blamed
each other Thursday for the latest skirmishes along a tense buffer
zone surrounding the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s military said that Azerbaijani troops opened fire
on the enclave’s soldiers and tried to advance on Wednesday, but were
rebuffed. Both sides suffered casualties, it said.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry, in turn, accused ethnic Armenian
fighters from the enclave of having fired at Azerbaijani positions
four times over the last two days. Several Azerbaijani servicemen were
wounded, it said in a statement Thursday, according to the Interfax
news agency.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Seiran Shakhsuvarian dismissed
the Azerbaijani statement as false.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been under the control of ethnic Armenians
since the early 1990s, following fighting that killed an estimated
30,000 people. A cease-fire was signed in 1994, but the enclave’s
final political status has not been determined and shooting breaks out
frequently between the two sides, which face off across a demilitarized
buffer zone.

The Armenian forces also hold some territory adjacent to
Nagorno-Karabakh.