MORE TRUCE VIOLATIONS REPORTED IN NORTHEASTERN ARMENIA
By Hrach Melkumian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 8 2006

The Armenian military accused Azerbaijani forces on Wednesday
of continuing to violate the ceasefire regime in the westernmost
section of the heavily militarized border between the two South
Caucasus states.

Echoing statements by the Defense Ministry in Yerevan, military
commanders in Armenia’s northeastern Tavush province said their
border posts have been under daily automatic gunfire from Azerbaijani
positions for more than a week. They insisted that their troops are
not returning fire to prevent the situation from escalating further.

“I have just been informed that our positions were again fired upon,”
Major Tigran Gevorgian, chief of staff of an Armenian army regiment
stationed in the regional capital Ijevan, told RFE/RL. “We registered
five such incidents yesterday.”

“There have been no cases of truce violation from our side,” he said.

“We haven’t even returned fire. But we have increased our vigilance
and are ready to defend our land at any moment.”

One of Gevorgian’s soldiers, the 19-year-old Arsen Zakevosian, was
wounded and died while being transported to a military hospital in
Ijevan on Friday from his unit’s positions just outside the border
village of Kayan. The Armenian military says it has not suffered any
other casualties so far.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has not reported any fighting in the
area close to eastern Georgia and denies the Armenian accusations. It
said on Monday that the Armenians themselves breached the truce by
killing an Azerbaijani army conscript in a section of the frontline
east of Nagorno-Karabakh. Karabakh Armenian forces dismissed the
claims.

Residents of Kayan, meanwhile, confirmed that gunshots on the border
have been more frequent in recent days. “We are all used to shootings,”
said Arsen Ghazarian whose family house is located on the edge of
the village, just meters from an army roadblock.

“The Azerbaijanis shoot all the time,” said one of his neighbors,
Telman Pirumian. “Even small children are not quite scared of that.”

Susanna, an elderly villager, harked back to the pre-war Soviet years
when local residents lived in peace with their Azerbaijani neighbors
and took pride in Kayan’s status as the main gateway to Armenia. “We
could go to Tbilisi and any other place from here. But now the road
[running through Kayan] is closed. We are in quarantine.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress