AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA DISPUTE CASUALTY FIGURES AFTER CLASHES

Agence France Presse — English
March 5, 2008 Wednesday

Armenia and Azerbaijan on Wednesday claimed conflicting casualty
figures a day after fighting between forces from the two ex-Soviet
neighbours near the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said that four of its soldiers and 12
Armenian soldiers were killed in Tuesday’s clashes.

Armenia’s armed forces said it lost no soldiers, but eight Azerbaijanis
died.

Each side claimed the other started the fighting.

Tuesday’s clashes began when Armenian forces opened fire on Azerbaijani
positions along the Nagorny Karabakh ceasefire line, Azerbaijani
defence ministry spokesman Eldar Sabiroglu said.

"It is disinformation," said Armenia’s Senor Hasratian, a spokesman
for the country’s forces in Nagorny Karabakh, saying Azerbaijani
forces had attacked first.

He said four of the Azerbaijani dead remain on the Armenian side and
negotiations were ongoing for their return.

Russia’s foreign ministry on Wednesday warned about the threat of
pitched battles erupting after the skirmishes.

"The main thing is not to allow the situation to develop into
large-scale combat and to expand to other points along the front line,"
the ministry said in a statement.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe presidency
called on both sides to "exercise maximum restraint".

"I urge the parties to avoid actions that could lead to further
unnecessary loss of life," Finnish Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva
said in a statement. Finland currently holds the OSCE presidency.

The two sides fought a war over the ethnic-Armenian dominated enclave
in the early 1990s.

Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are spread across a ceasefire line in
and around Nagorny Karabakh, often facing each other at close range,
and shootings are common.

Baku on Wednesday described the latest clashes as an attempt by
Yerevan to distract attention from internal civil strife in Armenia
in recent days.

"The enemy is trying to distract the international community from the
bloody events and the civil uprising in Armenia," defence ministry
spokesman Sabiroglu said.

The Armenian capital is under a state of emergency after eight
people were killed Saturday in street battles between riot police and
opposition supporters protesting the result of a presidential election.

Armenian forces seized control of Nagorny Karabakh and seven
surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s that
claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and forced about a million people
on both sides to flee their homes.