Two Azeri citizens on trial in rebel region

Two Azerbaijani citizens went on trial in the country's breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region on October 27.

Shahbaz Quliyev, 46, and Dilqam Askerov, 54, are charged with murder, espionage, illegal border crossing, and illegal weapons posssession.

Authorities in the self-proclaimed government of Nagorno-Karabakh say they crossed into the breakaway region on July 12 and killed an officer in its military.

Azerbaijani officials say the self-proclaimed government, which is not recognized by any nation, has no legal right to try the men.

Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh for years. Armenian-backed separatists seized the region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people and displaced many more.

Diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict have brought little progress.

(RFE/RL) 

Bakudaily.Az