AGDAM, Azerbaijan, Aug 10 (AFP) - The armed forces of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh Tuesday ended a military exercise on the borders of Azerbaijan that Armenian Defense Minister Serj Sarkissian said was aimed at keeping the peace.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in the heart of Azerbaijan, was the scene of a civil war in the 1990s that ended with a ceasefire in 1994 that left the enclave in Armenian hands. The war displaced a million civilians and left some 35,000 people dead.
Azerbaijan still claims the territory.
Sarkissian, who watched the maneuvers, said "these exercises are aimed at keeping the peace." He added it was important to keep a regional power balance.
"The armed forces of Armenia are the guarantors of the security of Nagorno-Karabakh," he said. "It is nobody's secret that the army of Nagorno-Karabakh cannot assure the defense of the territory on its own."
The Nagorno-Karabakh armed forces mustered some 2,000 men and a few helicopters and artillery pieces for the week-long exercise.
"The threat of war exists as long as the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is not resolved," said Armenian army chief of staff Mikael Arutiunian.
The exercises followed a statement by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan that his country would make no compromises with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
The statement appeared to mark a hardening of Azerbaijan's stance over the conflict.
"We cannot react positively to calls on us to make compromises. On questions of our territorial integrity we will never make any compromises," Aliyev said last month.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.