Agence France Presse — English
September 20, 2005 Tuesday 7:33 PM GMT

OSCE stops Karabakh monitoring mission after shot

YEREVAN

A ceasefire monitoring mission from the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) along frontlines between Azerbaijani
soldiers and ethnic Armenian forces in the volatile Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave was stopped Tuesday after gunfire.

“During the monitoring today, a single shot was heard by both OSCE
groups conducting monitoring along the frontline.

The monitoring was stopped,” Olexandr Samarski, an OSCE field
assistant, told AFP.

The monitors were near the village of Karakhanbeili in the Fizulinsky
region.

The OSCE conducts regular monitoring missions along the frontlines,
where a ceasefire has held since 1994 despite frequent shooting
incidents between the two sides.

Karabakh, a mountainous chunk of Azerbaijan’s territory predominantly
inhabited by Armenians, unilaterally declared independence from Baku
in 1991, unleashing a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan that killed
some 25,000 people.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress