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Armenia vows retribution after soldiers' deaths

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  • Armenia vows retribution after soldiers' deaths

    Agence France Presse
    April 27, 2012 Friday 3:44 PM GMT


    Armenia vows retribution after soldiers' deaths

    YEREVAN, April 27 2012


    Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian vowed retribution against enemy
    Azerbaijan on Friday after the deaths of three soldiers near the
    border between the ex-Soviet states.

    "I do not think that anyone in our country doubts that an appropriate
    reaction is inevitable," Sarkisian said in comments released by his
    press service.

    "I do not think that anyone has doubts about the strengths of our
    defence forces."

    The servicemen died of their wounds after their car came under fire in
    the early hours of Friday morning in the Tavush region of Armenia
    close to the border with Azerbaijan where two other soldiers were
    reportedly killed last month, the defence ministry in Yerevan said in
    a statement.

    Sarkisian also accused Azerbaijani forces of firing on an Armenian
    kindergarten and an ambulance in recent days.

    Azerbaijan's foreign ministry rejected the claims, accusing Armenia of
    being the "aggressor."

    "The Yerevan authorities are trying to mislead the international
    community," ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev told news agency
    Interfax-Azerbaijan.

    Yerevan and Baku are locked in a bitter dispute over the region of
    Nagorny Karabakh, which Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized
    from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s that left some 30,000 people
    dead.

    Despite years of negotiations since the 1994 ceasefire, the two sides
    have not yet signed a final peace deal, and there are still frequent
    exchanges of gunfire between the opposing armies.

    In a separate incident, Azerbaijan on Friday accused Armenian forces
    of killing one of its army officers on the front line near Karabakh.

    "On the evening of April 26, 24-year-old Azerbaijani army officer
    Vagif Abdullayev was fatally wounded as a result of a violation of the
    ceasefire regime in (the town of) Aghdam," defence ministry spokesman
    Teymur Abdullayev told AFP.

    It was the third reported death so far this year on the Karabakh front line.

    The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which
    mediates in negotiations over the Karabakh conflict, said it was
    "deeply concerned" by the reported violence.

    "Such senseless acts violate the commitment of the parties to refrain
    from the use of force and to seek a peaceful settlement," the OSCE's
    Minsk Group said in a statement.

    Baku has threatened to use force to win back Karabakh if peace talks
    fail to yield satisfactory results, but Yerevan has warned of
    large-scale retaliation against any military action.

    mkh-eg-emc/gd

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