YEREVAN - Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave over which Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war a decade ago, Wednesday denied reports that a ceasefire breach had occurred along the tense line dividing the province from Azeri territory.
"The Nagorno-Karabakh foreign ministry categorically denied information aired by Azerbaijan on Tuesday that Azeri positions were fired at by Karabakh troops," a spokesman told AFP by telephone.
"This is open disinformation," Leonid Martrosyan said.
On Tuesday, Azeri television reported that two Azeri soldiers had been killed the previous day near the enclave.
A "shootout resulted in the killing of one soldier by sniper fire while another was wounded in the shoulder and taken to an hospital where he died," ATV said in an evening news bulletin.
An ethnic Armenian enclave that had a 25 percent Azeri population before the war, Nagorno-Karabakh was the object of a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan until 1994 when the active phase of the conflict ended.
Armenia controls Karabakh and seven surrounding regions equal to roughly 14 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory.
Last year six people lost their lives in ceasefire breaches while an additional 13 people were killed and 21 injured on landmines around Karabakh.
The Minsk Group, comprised of France, Russia and the United States and operating under a mandate from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been mediating peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan for the past decade.
03/16/2005 15:51 GMT