ARMENIA ARRESTS FORMER ARMY OFFICIAL AS AZERBAIJANI SPY

Agence France Presse
October 21, 2009 Wednesday 11:21 AM GMT
YEREVAN

Armenia’s National Security Service said Wednesday that it had
arrested a former military official on charges of spying for arch-foe
Azerbaijan.

The service said in a statement that Gevorg Airapetian, a former
lieutenant-colonel in the Armenian military, was facing charges of high
treason for allegedly collaborating with Azerbaijani secret services.

It said Airapetian had been discharged from the military for breach
of discipline in 2007.

The statement added that a foreign citizen who had allegedly relayed
information between Airapetian and Azerbaijan was also arrested. The
security service provided no details on what kind of information had
allegedly changed hands.

Azerbaijan’s National Security Service denied the spying allegations,
saying it had no knowledge of Airapetian.

"This information is absurd and a cheap provocation on the part of
Armenia," service spokesman Arif Babayev told the Interfax-Azerbaijan
news agency.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in conflict for years over the
breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region, which ethnic Armenian separatists,
backed by Yerevan, seized from Baku’s control during a war in the
early 1990s that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives.

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.

Tensions over the region have heightened in recent weeks amid efforts
by Armenia and Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, to establish
diplomatic ties and reopen their border after decades of hostility.