Azerbaijan’s breakaway region denies cease-fire violation reports

ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
15 Jun 05

Yerevan, 15 June: Officials in Stepanakert have denied statements
by official Baku about cease-fire violations in the zone of the
Karabakh conflict.

“This is a deliberate piece of misinformation which pursues purely
propagandist aims,” the spokesman for the defence ministry of the
unrecognized Nagornyy Karabakh republic (NKR), Senor Asratyan, said
in a telephone conversation with ITAR-TASS from Stepanakert.

“The Azerbaijani side wants to aggravate the situation around Nagornyy
Karabakh in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in the NKR to
be held on Sunday [19 June],” Asratyan said.

The Azerbaijani deputy interior minister and commander-in-chief of
the country’s Interior Ministry troops, Lt Gen Zakir Hasanov, who is
on a visit to Moscow, today spoke about cease-fire violations on the
contact line between the [Armenian and Azerbaijani] troops.

The Azerbaijani leadership is concerned about repeated cease-fire
violations, he said.

“International organizations, including the United Nations, are
dealing with this problem,” he said.