Armenian and Azerbaijan troops exchange fire, 2 dead

Two Azerbaijan soldiers died on Thursday in an exchange of fire with Armenian troops, dpa quoted the Interfax news agency as reporting. The fighting took place along a ceasefire line established between the two countries after a war ending in 1994 over the ethnic Armenian enclave Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan Defence Ministry spokesman Teymur Abdullaev was quoted as saying Azerbaijan forces opened fire on Armenian troops that were violating the ceasefire line at several locations. A "intense" firefight followed with both sides suffering casualties, he said, according to the Azerbaijan news agency apa. The Armenian Panorama news agency said the combat took place on neutral territory dividing the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave from Azerbaijan's central Tetersk district. The Thursday gun battle came as French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was scheduled to travel through the Caucasus region for a total three days of state visits first to Armenia, and followed by Azerbaijan and Georgia. Sarkozy in past remarks has called on Yerevan and Baku to lay aside their hostility over Nagorno-Karabakh, citing Franco-German rapprochment after World War II as a possible example to follow. The French leader was arriving in the wake of a Wednesday shooting in an Armenian-controlled village near the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire line, where two Armenian soldiers were wounded by a sniper firing from the Azerbaijan side, the report said. The Armenia-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh region and its borders with surrounding Azerbaijan are generally tense and individual shots fired across the ceasefire line occur regularly. Pitched firefights are rare.