ARMENIA ASKS AZERBAIJAN TO STOP SHOOT-OUT ON FRONT LINE – AZERI ARMY OFFICIAL

Day.Az
March 5 2008
Azerbaijan

5 March: The events that took place on the [Azerbaijani-Armenian]
front on 4 March and the worthy response by theAzerbaijani armed forces
show once again that the enemy will not manage to overpower our army,
the head of the pressservice of the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry,
Lt-Col Eldar Sabiroglu, said today.

He said that the combat readiness of the Azerbaijani armed forces
was at a high level.

"The Armenian armed forces sustained numerous casualties and there
were wounded soldiers, which has caused awave of discontent in that
country. Armenia is engaged in disseminating misinformation again,
and there is nothingstrange about it. The enemy carried out this
provocation in order to divert the attention of the world community
fromfalsifications during the [19 February] presidential election in
Armenia, and this yielded no results.

"One of the aims of the large-scale violation of the cease-fire was
an attempt to put the blame for thedevelopments on Azerbaijan.

However, everyone knows that the international community, too,
is informed about the tricks of the Armenian side. Their two-faced
mask has been torn off, and the whole world knows that Armenia is
anoccupier," he said.

Sabiroglu noted that in order to conceal the actual number of its
casualties, Armenia is currently disseminatingbiased information. He
said this was not happening for the first time.

The head of the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry press service stressed
that the enemy should have considered that if it attacked [Azerbaijan]
it would sustain serious casualties as the principle of hostilities
is that the attacking sidesustains greater losses.

Armenia’s military leadership was at a loss and asked the Azerbaijani
Defence Ministry leadership andinternational organizations for the
shoot-out to be stopped.

[Day.az on 4 March quoted the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry as saying
that 12 Armenian troops were killed and 15seriously wounded in a clash
on the contact line between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops on 4
March. On 5 March, theArmenian Defence Ministry denied the report,
while the defence ministry of Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagornyy
Karabakhsaid that Azerbaijan lost eight killed in the fighting.]