Defense ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan discuss trust-building measures

Associated Press Worldstream
October 20, 2006 Friday 5:01 PM GMT

Armenian and Azerbaijani defense ministers met Friday to search for
ways to end regular skirmishes on the tense border between the two
ex-Soviet nations, which have been locked in a conflict over the
disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia’s Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian and his Azerbaijani
counterpart, Safar Abiyev, met on the border to discuss ways to enforce
the cease-fire and other border-control issues, Sarkisian’s spokesman
Seiran Shakhsuvarian said.

He said the meeting was held on the initiative of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has acted as mediator
in the conflict.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous territory inside Azerbaijan, but
it has been controlled along with some surrounding areas by Karabakh
and Armenian forces since 1994. A shaky cease-fire in 1994 ended the
six-year conflict, in which 30,000 people were killed and about 1
million driven from their homes, but talks on the enclave’s status
has stalled.

Shooting breaks out frequently between the two sides across a
demilitarized buffer zone.