OSCE: FIRES IN THE TERRITORIES AROUND NK CAUSED BY WEATHER CONDITIONS

Regnum, Russia
Aug. 22, 2006

The fires in the territories around Nagorno Karabakh have been caused
by weather conditions, says the Personal Representative of the OSCE
Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. He says that the bigger scale
of fires this year is due to very early heat. At the same time,
Kasprzyk refrains from making conclusions. He says that he is not an
investigator. Besides, he did not see anybody and could not find any
fact revealing the cause of the fires. He says that there have been
fires before though they were not as big.

"I think everybody understands that fires are caused by different
things. It will be enough for you to watch the latest news: fires
in California, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Poland, Spain, Portugal,"
says Kasprzyk.

He says that the Azeri side has already asked the OSCE CIO to set
experts to find out the cause of the fires, reports ArmInfo.

To remind, on June 15, 2006 the Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Ministry
urged the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE CIO to
hold a monitoring of the contact line with Azerbaijan in order to
give a real assessment of the situation and to see that Azerbaijan’s
charges of arson are just allegations. On July 3-5 the Personal
Representative of the OSCE CIO Andrzej Kasprzyk monitored the border
zone between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan, drafted a seven-page
report and submitted it to OSCE CIO Karel de Gucht, who, in his turn,
presented the report to the Azeri FM.