AZERBAIJAN HANDS BODY OF DEAD SOLDIER OVER TO ARMENIA
ANS TV
August 5 2008
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan has handed over the body of an Armenian soldier killed in
a cross-border clash on 18 July, ANS television has reported.
The body of Gor Manasyan, 22, was handed to the Armenian side at around
0930 gmt on 5 August, ANS said. The handover took place without any
international mediator, according to the report.
Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry had earlier said that Manasyan was
killed while attempting to cross into Azerbaijan’s western Tovuz
District as part of a reconnaissance group, ANS reported on 19 July.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are officially at war over Nagornyy Karabakh,
a predominantly ethnic Armenian-populated region that broke away from
Azerbaijan following a separatist war in the early 1990s. Exchanges
of fire are common between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops despite
a cease-fire reached in 1994.