RIA Novosti, Russia
Feb 15 2007

Armenia says officer killed by Azerbaijan sniper, Baku denies
11:57 | 15/ 02/ 2007

BAKU/YEREVAN, February 15 (RIA Novosti) – Armenia and Azerbaijan have
once again traded accusations amid a bilateral conflict over a
breakaway region, with Yerevan claiming an Azerbaijani sniper killed
an Armenian officer, and Baku denying the allegation.

"A contract serviceman, 49-year-old Major Ervand Pashikyan, was
fatally injured at about 9:30 a.m. local time [5:30 a.m. GMT]
yesterday by a shot fired by an Azerbaijani sniper at the combat
position of the Noembryan military unit," Col. Seiran Shakhsuvaryan,
a spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry, said referring to the
military unit in northeastern Armenia on the border with Azerbaijan.
The spokesman said the officer died on the spot from a chest wound.

The Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan, conversely, said Armenia opened
small arms fire at Azerbaijani positions Wednesday morning, which
lasted for 20 minutes.

"The attack was suppressed with return fire, and the Azerbaijani side
suffered no loss of life," Ilgar Verdiyev, a ministry spokesman,
said, adding it was nonsensical of Armenia "to regularly violate the
ceasefire and then blame it on Azerbaijan."

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the two
South Caucasus nations have been in conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a
region in Azerbaijan with a largely Armenian population. The dispute
first erupted in 1988 when Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence
from Azerbaijan and moved to join Armenia.

Over 30,000 people were killed on both sides between 1988 and 1994,
and over 100 died following a 1994 ceasefire. Nagorno-Karabakh
remained in Armenian hands, but tensions between Azerbaijan and
Armenia have persisted. Azerbaijan seems determined to restore its
control over the separatist region.