Lost Villages Recaptured, Azerbaijan Says

Azerbaijan said Sunday that it has beaten back attacking Armenian forces in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and recaptured villages lost over the weekend.

The Azerbaijani news agency Assa-Irada quoted the Defense Ministry as saying that fierce battles were raging for the third consecutive day as Azerbaijan’s national army launched a counteroffensive, destroying three Armenian tanks.

Armenia’s Karabakh news agency denied that Azerbaijani forces have regained control of villages in northeast Nagorno-Karabakh.

The battles in Nagorno-Karabakh appeared to doom that region’s latest cease-fire accord, which was brokered by Kazakhstan and came into force Sept. 1. Several previous cease-fire agreements have failed to halt the conflict.

At least 2,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting over the enclave, populated mostly by Armenians but ruled by Azerbaijan since 1923.

In the rebel Georgian region of Abkhazia, another hot spot in Transcaucasia, government and secessionist commanders signed a protocol on fulfilling a new cease-fire and withdrawing troops from front-line areas, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency said.

Georgian and Abkhazian leaders met in the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi, to discuss ways of carrying out the cease-fire there and of putting an end to battles that have killed at least 150 people in the last month.

“The sides agreed to withdraw the troops beyond firing range and cease fire from the moment of the signing of the agreement,” Itar-Tass said.

Abkhazian leader Vladislav Ardzinba told Russian television that he does not like the terms of the cease-fire but will stick to them to prove his people are peace-loving.

Abkhazia’s parliamentary leadership earlier accused Georgian forces of violating the cease-fire by launching helicopter and tank attacks in the Black Sea region.

The cease-fire, due to come into effect Saturday, was reached at talks in Moscow last week between the Russian, Georgian and Abkhazian leaders.

Georgia sent troops into Abkhazia last month after the region’s Parliament voted to restore the 1925 constitution, effectively demanding greater autonomy. Abkhazian officials deny that they want independence.

Less than a quarter of the region’s population consists of ethnic Abkhazians, and they are outnumbered by Georgians.