The Armenian and Azerbaijani Defense Ministries have each accused the opposing side of launching an offensive early on March 4 on the Line of Contact near the Mardakert Raion in the northeast of the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian Defense Ministry said Azerbaijani forces attacked and took a Karabakh Armenian armed forces post but were forced to abandon it and retreat after a counterattack later that day. The Defense Ministry said on March 4 "several" Azerbaijani servicemen were killed but the Armenian side suffered no casualties. Russian media including gazeta.ru quoted Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian as saying that the Azerbaijani side used heavy artillery for the first time since the May 1994 cease-fire; that claim has not yet been substantiated. In Baku, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Eldar Sabiroglu said the Armenian side launched the attack, in which he claimed 12 Armenian servicemen were killed and 15 seriously wounded, day.az reported. On March 5, Sabiroglu named four Azerbaijani servicemen killed in the fighting, which Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Xazar Ibragim suggested on March 4 was an attempt to distract attention from the domestic political tensions in Armenia. On January 9, the online daily echo-az.com quoted an Azerbaijani Defense Ministry official as saying that in 2007, Armenia violated the cease-fire 575 times, killing 17 Azerbaijani servicemen in the course of that year and wounding nine. LF
RFE/RL Newsline, Wednesday, March 5, 2008 Volume 12 Number 44
No comments:
Post a Comment