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AZERBAIJANI SNIPER KILLS ARMENIAN SOLDIER NEAR DISPUTED REGION: REBELS
Agence France Presse
March 30, 2015 Monday 11:11 AM GMT
Yerevan, March 30 2015
An Azerbaijani sniper shot dead an Armenian soldier, the latest
casualty in violence along the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region's
volatile frontline, rebel officials said Monday.
"A Karabakh army serviceman was mortally wounded on Sunday evening
by an Azerbaijani sharpshooter," the separatist defence ministry said
in a statement.
The death comes after several months of unprecedented violence along
the line dividing the warring sides and takes the number of people
reported killed on both sides this year to 23.
Yerevan and Baku have been locked in a dispute over Azerbaijan's
Nagorny Karabakh region since a bloody war in the early 1990.
Threatening a shaky 1994 truce, clashes between Azerbaijani and
Armenian forces across the arch-foes' border and along the Karabakh
frontline intensified last year.
Yerevan-backed ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of Karabakh
and another seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan during the conflict
that left some 30,000 dead.
Despite years of negotiations, the two sides have not signed a
final peace deal, and Armenian-populated Karabakh is internationally
recognised as part of Azerbaijan.
Karabakh's ethnic-Azeri community -- around a quarter of the population
before the war -- was entirely driven out.
Baku, whose military spending exceeds Armenia's entire state budget,
has threatened to take back the territories by force if negotiations
fail to yield results.
Armenia, backed militarily by Russia, says it could crush any
offensive.
Agence France Presse
March 30, 2015 Monday 11:11 AM GMT
Yerevan, March 30 2015
An Azerbaijani sniper shot dead an Armenian soldier, the latest
casualty in violence along the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region's
volatile frontline, rebel officials said Monday.
"A Karabakh army serviceman was mortally wounded on Sunday evening
by an Azerbaijani sharpshooter," the separatist defence ministry said
in a statement.
The death comes after several months of unprecedented violence along
the line dividing the warring sides and takes the number of people
reported killed on both sides this year to 23.
Yerevan and Baku have been locked in a dispute over Azerbaijan's
Nagorny Karabakh region since a bloody war in the early 1990.
Threatening a shaky 1994 truce, clashes between Azerbaijani and
Armenian forces across the arch-foes' border and along the Karabakh
frontline intensified last year.
Yerevan-backed ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of Karabakh
and another seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan during the conflict
that left some 30,000 dead.
Despite years of negotiations, the two sides have not signed a
final peace deal, and Armenian-populated Karabakh is internationally
recognised as part of Azerbaijan.
Karabakh's ethnic-Azeri community -- around a quarter of the population
before the war -- was entirely driven out.
Baku, whose military spending exceeds Armenia's entire state budget,
has threatened to take back the territories by force if negotiations
fail to yield results.
Armenia, backed militarily by Russia, says it could crush any
offensive.