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Nagorno-Karabakh combatants strike deal to safely recover their dead
Russian and Azeri delegations, led by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (5th L) and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (4th R), meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, April 8, 2016. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Alexander Astafyev
08/04/2016
BAKU/YEREVAN (Reuters) - Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed separatists said on Friday they had struck a temporary deal to allow each side to safely search for the bodies of their soldiers killed in clashes over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The warring parties agreed a ceasefire on Tuesday - with Russian help - after four days of shelling and artillery strikes which killed dozens. The truce has largely held, though both sides have reported some violations.
The violence prompted fears of an all out war in the strategically-important South Caucasus through which Caspian Sea oil and gas is exported to world markets bypassing Russia.
On Friday, the Azeri defense ministry and the Nagorno-Karabakh defense ministry said they had sealed a deal to ensure there were no violations for a five-hour period later in the day to allow both sides to search for their dead.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the International Committee of the Red Cross were involved in coordinating the arrangement, both sides said.
An official at the Armenian defense ministry used social media to post the names and photographs of 44 separatist soldiers who he said were killed in the clashes since April 2.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was on Friday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to hold talks with Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri president, aimed at resuming diplomatic efforts to resolve the territorial dispute.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous enclave within Azerbaijan's borders, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians who reject Azerbaijan's rule. With support from Armenia they fought a war in the early 1990s to establish de facto control over the territory.
The fighting this week was the most intense since a 1994 ceasefire that stopped the conflict but did not resolve the underlying dispute.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova and Denis Dyomkin in BAKU and Hasmik Mkrtchyan; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)
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