DEATHS IN AZERI-ARMENIAN CLASHES

AlJazeera
March 5 2008
Qatar

Azerbaijan says Armenia is trying to distract from its internal
protests sparked by last month’s polls [AFP]

Azerbaijan and Armenia have accused each other of triggering an
exchange of gunfire in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region that has
killed up to 16 people.

On Wednesday both sides gave conflicting casualty figures a day after
fighting between forces of the two ex-Soviet neighbours.

Azerbaijan says 12 Armenian fighters and four Azeri soldiers were
killed while Armenia says eight Azeri soldiers died and two Armenian
soldiers were injured.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an area in the Caucasus mountains, broke away
from Azerbaijan in the late 1980s which sparked a two-year war which
started in 1992.

Wednesday’s clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan were one of the
biggest in recent years.

Blame game

Robert Kocharyan, the Armenian president, said Azerbaijan had launched
the attack to take advantage of his country’s tense political standoff
after protests against last month’s election.

"It is possible in Azerbaijan they thought the situation in Armenia
had distracted the authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh," he said.

Azerbaijan said Armenia was trying to distract attention from protests
in Yerevan by focusing on an external enemy.

Serzh Sarksyan, Armenia’s prime minister, was last month elected as
president in a disputed election.

Azeri accusation

"The Armenian side resorted to provocations on the frontline in a bid
to switch the attention of the international community and its own
citizens from internal tensions to an external enemy," a spokesman
from the Azeri foreign ministry said.

The breakaway region’s foreign ministry appealed to the Organisation
for Security and Co-operation in Europe to intervene and conduct
crisis-monitoring in the conflict zone.

Earlier this week, Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri president, said his country
was ready to take back Nagorno-Karabakh by force if need be, and was
buying military equipment and arms in preparation.

Aliyev said Kosovo’s newly declared independence had emboldened
Armenian separatists in the mountainous enclave.

The US and Russia have urged both parties to show restraint.

Concerns

"We do not want a war in the region," a US diplomat said in Baku,
the capital of Azerbaijan.

"We are following the situation very closely and we urge both sides
to exercise restraint and avoid any violence."

Matt Bryza, the US deputy assistant secretary of state, who was in
Baku on Tuesday, is due in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, later this
week to facilitate talks between the government and opposition.

Russia’s foreign ministry also expressed concern. It a statement is
said: "The most important thing at the moment is to avoid letting
this grow into massive military action in the (region)."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress