Minsk Group Co-chairs condemn incident of exchange of fire on February
26 on contact-line

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YEREVAN, MARCH 6, NOYAN TAPAN. OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs Bernard
Fassier, Yuri Merzliakov, and Matthew Bryza condemned the "incident of
exchange of fire that happened on February 26 on the contact-line near
Horadiz during the monitoring conducted by Andrzej Kasprzyk, the
Personal Representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office."

According to Radio Liberty, in the statement published by Kyle Scott,
Charge d’Affaires of the United States delegation at the OSCE Permanent
Council, the Co-chairs called the sides for steadily keeping the
ceasefire and deeply regretted to say that more than 30 people perished
and more than 50 were injured in consequence of the ceasefire
violations in 2008. "We strictly condemn the ceasefire violation during
the monitoring, especially in consideration that the local commanders
gave written security guarantees before the February 26 monitoring. We
demand explanations from the sides about how such a loud ceasefire
violation could happen," the statement read.

The mediators regret to say that "not all sides have accepted the
proposal introduced by Minsk Group at the OSCE Ministers’ Council in
2008 December in Helsinki on drawing back the rifleman from the
contact-line."

A regular monitoring carried out by the OSCE mission failed on February
26 because of shots. According to NKR Defence Ministry report, at the
very start of monitoring fires were shot from the Azeri side in the
direction of the OSCE mission, NKR Foreign Ministry and Defence
Ministry representatives carrying out monitoring from the Karabakh
defence army positions. After that the Personal Representative of OSCE
Chairman-in-Office ordered to stop the monitoring.

The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, in its turn, insists that the shots
were fired from the Armenian side.