Nato Scraps Exercises Over Azeri Ban On Armenian Troops

BRUSSELS, Sept 13 (AFP) - NATO has cancelled military exercises due to be held in Azerbaijan later this month after Baku said it did now want Armenian troops on its territory, a spokesman for the Atlantic alliance said on Monday.
The decision to scrap the manoeuvres was taken by the supreme commander of allied forces in Europe, US General James Jones, the spokesman said, voicing the alliance's "regrets" at the Azeri decision.
On Saturday, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev said he was opposed to Armenian officers taking part in the NATO exercises, scheduled several months ago to take place on September 27 in the framework of the alliance's Partnership for Peace.
Armenia was one of several dozen countries due to participate.
In the early 1990s Baku and Yerevan fought a five-year war over the remote enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, administratively part of Azerbaijan but inhabited mainly by Armenians. Some 35,000 people died in the fighting and about one million civilians were displaced.
The territory is currently controlled by Armenia.
Attempts to broker a settlement have so far failed, although the two countries cooperate within the NATO Partnership for Peace.