Truce holding in Karabakh after deadly clashes

MATAGIS, Azerbaijan — Azerbaijani and Armenian forces on Wednesday said they were largely observing a truce that halted four days of clashes which claimed scores of lives in the worst outbreak of violence in decades over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region. “The cease-fire was largely observed overnight along the Karabakh frontline,” the Armenia-backed separatist defense ministry in Karabakh said in a statement. Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said its forces were “strictly abiding by the cease-fire agreement” that was hammered out on Tuesday by the Azerbaijani and Armenian army chiefs during a meeting in Moscow. Armenia’s defense ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan said that sporadic shooting continued on Wednesday “including from tanks, but not as intensive” as during the last days. An AFP photographer in the village of Matagis in Karabakh, some 10 km from the front-line, confirmed that “the night was calm and without shooting.” A Karabakh army officer told the photographer that “occasional shooting has been a normal thing on the front-line for years.” “It doesn’t mean that the cease-fire failed.” The fragile truce comes after at least 75 people were reported killed as the festering dispute over the territory — which was captured from Azerbaijan by Armenian separatists in an early 1990s war — escalated dramatically on Friday, sparking international concern. — AFP