AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN FORCES EXCHANGE MORE WEAPONS
Pravda, Russia
March 9 2006
Azerbaijani and Armenian forces exchanged more weapons fire along
the countries’ northern border, Azerbaijani military officials said
Thursday, in the latest rise in violence between the two Caucasus
nations.
A Defense Ministry statement said its forces in five locations were
fired on by Armenian forces with mortars and gunfire on Wednesday
and that the firing halted only after Azerbaijani troops returned fire.
The ministry reported no casualties.
Armenian defense officials could not be immediately reached for
comment.
Earlier this week, the two sides exchanged heavy gunfire and mortar
fire at several points along their border, killing at least one
Azerbaijani soldier and wounding several Azerbaijani and Armenian
soldiers.
The two countries remain at odds over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh,
an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. A cease-fire agreement
was reached in 1994 after six years of fighting, and the enclave is now
under the control of ethnic Armenians, whose troops face Azerbaijani
forces across a half-mile-wide no man’s land.
Sporadic clashes, however, break out along the Nagorno-Karabakh border
and land mines continue to kill people every year, reports the AP.