ARMENIAN PRESIDENT BLAMES AZERBAIJAN FOR OUTBREAK OF FIGHTING

Armenian 2nd Channel TV
March 5 2008

Kocharyan blamed the Azerbaijani authorities for using the internal
political situation in Armenia "for otherpurposes".

He said the Armenian side "contacted the [Azerbaijani] Ministry
of Defence, and reached an agreement to stop theexchange of fire",
the TV reported. Kocharyan said that after the Karabakh armed forces
regained control of thepositions, the positions came under fire from
mortars at some point and added that "artillery had not been used on
the front line for a long time", the TV added.

The Armenian president said the personal representative of the OSCE
chairman-in-office, Andrzej Kasprzyk, wasvisiting Azerbaijan’s capital
Baku at that time and Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan and
Defence Minister Mikayel Harutyunyan contacted him concerning the
issue, the TV reported.

"I believe we are able to correct the incident, and of course, it
is necessary to restore the normal cease-fire regime along the whole
contact line," Kocharyan added.

He said the reason for the incident is that "they probably thought in
Azerbaijan that the situation in Armeniahas dulled the vigilance of
the armed forces in Nagornyy Karabakh. Maybe it seemed to them that
some large army unitshad been transferred from Nagornyy Karabakh
to Armenia." "I can say that there is no such thing, our military
capability remains at the appropriate level and I believe it is
politically incorrect to use such situations forcompletely different
purposes", the Armenian president said.