KARABAKH DENIES SHELLING AZERBAIJAN’S ARMY POSITIONS
by Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 3, 2006 Monday 08:31 AM EST

One Azerbaijanian serviceman was killed and another was injured when
national army positions were shelled in the Fizulinsky district in
the southwest of the country, spokesman for the Azerbaijan’s Defense
Ministry Ilgar Verdiyev told Itar-Tass in Baku on Monday. A Nagorno
Karabakh official denied the report.

Verdiyev claimed shooting had come from the occupied parts of the
Fizulinsky district. Seven Azerbaijanian servicemen have died and 11
have been wounded in the zone of the Karabakh conflict since early
March, according to him.

Spokesman for the Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed
Nagorno-Karabakh republic Lt-Col Senor Asratyan told Tass the
information given by Azerbaijan’s military does not correspond
to reality.

A mine exploded on the southwestern stretch of the contact line between
Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh on Sunday, in which Azerbaijanian
troops might have been hurt.

“In actual fact, the military leadership of Azerbaijan is trying to put
the responsibility on Karabakh or Armenia for its inept administration
of troops,” Asratyan said.