Interfax, Russia
Feb 27 2009

OSCE team halts monitoring after fire in Karabakh conflict region

Stepanakert, 27 February: A team of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe was forced on Thursday [26 February] to cut
short a regular monitoring mission along the separation line between
Azerbaijani and Nagornyy-Karabakh armed forces because of alleged fire
towards the inspectors from the Azerbaijani side, the
Nagornyy-Karabakh foreign ministry said.

"At the very start of the monitoring session, there was the sound of
an individual shot fired from the Azerbaijanii side towards the
coordinator of the OSCE office, a field assistant to a personal
representative of the OSCE chairman, and officials of the foreign
ministry and defence ministry of the Nagornyy-Karabakh republic who
were conducting a monitoring mission on the positions of the defence
army of the Nagornyy-Karabakh republic," the ministry told Interfax.

After this came "a burst of assault rifle fire from the Azerbaijani
side," the ministry said. The bullets "passed to the left of the
monitoring team, after which one more shot was fired towards the
mission".

Andrzej Kasprzyk, a personal representative of the OSCE
chairman-in-office, who was coordinating the mission from Azeri
territory, ordered the inspection to be ended, the ministry said.

The site of the monitoring was the vicinity of Horadiz, a village in
Fizuli District.

The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry confirmed there had been outbreaks of
fire during the mission but claimed they had come from the
Nagornyy-Karabakh side and said Kasprzyk had ordered an investigation
into the incident.

"There was the sound of two individual shots [from the
Nagornyy-Karabakh side] that developed into a burst of fire," the
ministry said in a press release. "Later on, there was the sound of
one more shot. No more assault rifle fire was heard after that."

Kasprzyk ordered the mission to be halted and the incident to be
investigated, the release said.