Nagorno Karabakh

Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh troops drove to within a mile of the highly strategic Azerbaijani town of Kelbajar on Thursday, news agencies reported, and sources said the town fell late in the day. Buildings in the town were on fire and thousands were trying to flee into the surrounding mountains, reports said of the fierce fighting, which is part of the two countries' war over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

Sporadic sniper fire over sandbagged trenches that separate Armenians and Azerbaijanis across the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has been a routine feature of daily life throughout the 19 years that the two sides have grudgingly observed a cease-fire. But the harassing potshots and provocative power plays have taken on a more ominous feel in recent weeks as pressure mounts on both sides of the “frozen conflict” for uncompromised victory in one of the world's most bitter armed standoffs.

A new peace effort by Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh stalled, with Azerbaijan holding back from signing a cease-fire agreement. In talks in Moscow on Monday, the two sides agreed on a truce and a withdrawal of forces to form an exclusion zone around Karabakh. But the Azerbaijani delegation returned home without signing the deal.

Azerbaijan's Armenian-populated rebel region of Nagorno-Karabakh has reelected an independence hard-liner as its leader. Electoral officials said preliminary figures showed Arkady Gukasyan had won a five-year term as "president" of the mountainous territory that broke away from then-Soviet Azerbaijan in 1988. Gukasyan took 89% of the vote, held in defiance of Azerbaijan and the world community, which does not recognize Karabakh's independence.

On almost any day, artist Hovik Gasparian can be found here seated on a stool, bent over an easel, putting oil on canvas to show the ruins of the city he loves. Deftly he paints the blown-apart buildings, the piles of rubble, the broken beams and the crushed fountains of this historic settlement high on a mountain in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. From his studio in the town's half-ravaged art gallery, he looks out at the remains of the school he attended as a boy three decades ago.

President Boris N. Yeltsin intervened in the seemingly endless conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday, but efforts to arrange a cease-fire seemed doomed. In a message to the presidents of rivals Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Russian leader expressed alarm at the fighting and offered to mediate, his spokesman said in a statement. Both the Transcaucasian nations denied any knowledge of a cease-fire announced Thursday by Russian Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev and due to begin at noon (1 a.m.

Sporadic sniper fire over sandbagged trenches that separate Armenians and Azerbaijanis across the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has been a routine feature of daily life throughout the 19 years that the two sides have grudgingly observed a cease-fire. But the harassing potshots and provocative power plays have taken on a more ominous feel in recent weeks as pressure mounts on both sides of the “frozen conflict” for uncompromised victory in one of the world's most bitter armed standoffs.

Shelling by Armenian and Azerbaijani forces shattered a cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh only a few hours after it took effect Thursday, and both sides suffered casualties, officials and news reports said. Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan sent a special message to the leaders of 14 countries, including the United States, urging them to dissuade Azerbaijan from forming its own army and to help work out a peace plan.

Azerbaijan's Armenian-populated rebel region of Nagorno-Karabakh has reelected an independence hard-liner as its leader. Electoral officials said preliminary figures showed Arkady Gukasyan had won a five-year term as "president" of the mountainous territory that broke away from then-Soviet Azerbaijan in 1988. Gukasyan took 89% of the vote, held in defiance of Azerbaijan and the world community, which does not recognize Karabakh's independence.

Dozens of military vehicles roared toward Nagorno-Karabakh, apparently to speed the withdrawal of former Soviet troops from the disputed enclave after a week of intense fighting. Two large convoys, including one of nearly 100 tanks, armored vehicles, troop carriers and missile trucks, drove toward Stepanakert, capital of the territory claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh voted for a new leader Sunday, defying the world community and brushing off angry protests from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku. In the latest twist in the long dispute over the mountainous enclave, its predominantly ethnic Armenian people turned out in fog and rain to elect a new "president" in a poll they hope will help gain recognition for their homeland. "Any international organization that does not recognize these elections ...

The chief U.S. negotiator said he believes that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan can settle a 13-year-old conflict over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, one of Europe's almost forgotten disputes. Armenia's president, however, was more cautious. U.S. Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh said last week that the "peace process is accelerating" after "dramatic momentum" during negotiations between Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Azerbaijani President Heydar A. Aliyev in Key West, Fla.

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan told President Bush on Monday that they have made substantial progress in talks aimed at ending 13 years of ethnic conflict over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, senior U.S. officials said. "We were surprised at how far they came," one official said in reference to negotiations last week in Key West, Fla., between Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Azerbaijani President Heydar A. Aliyev.

On almost any day, artist Hovik Gasparian can be found here seated on a stool, bent over an easel, putting oil on canvas to show the ruins of the city he loves. Deftly he paints the blown-apart buildings, the piles of rubble, the broken beams and the crushed fountains of this historic settlement high on a mountain in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. From his studio in the town's half-ravaged art gallery, he looks out at the remains of the school he attended as a boy three decades ago.

In the Bush administration's first venture into direct mediation of an international dispute, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conferred Tuesday with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan about the stalemated conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. "These Key West talks highlight U.S. engagement in the international effort to bring peace" to the troubled region, Powell told reporters.

Prosecutors in the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh charged five men with the attempted assassination of its president, Arkady Gukasyan, who was seriously wounded by gunmen Wednesday. Prosecutors said all five have links to Samvel Babyan, a former defense minister of the separatist enclave in Azerbaijan who was fired last year after a dispute with Gukasyan. The five have admitted their involvement, prosecutors said.

Village-to-village fighting and heavy shelling of the capital racked the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday in a radical new escalation of warfare that has already cost more than 1,000 lives in the Caucasus Mountains enclave. Armenian and Azerbaijani militants grappled for control of several villages seen as key tactical positions on Nagorno-Karabakh's border with Azerbaijan, and scores of rockets rained down on the capital of Stepanakert, according to reports from the region.

Armenian Prime Minister Armen Darbinyan said Tuesday that his country is prepared to forgo its demands for the immediate independence or annexation of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in an effort to break a diplomatic impasse with neighboring Azerbaijan. "We are ready not to consider Karabakh now as a part of Armenia.

A decade after the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh erupted on the world scene in 1988, after thousands of deaths on both sides and years of futile negotiations, the conflict is still nowhere near a settlement. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), during a recent appropriations subcommittee hearing, told Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that he was "deeply skeptical" regarding the current peace process.