According to the Associated Press, an Azerbaijani official said, however, that Baku had demanded Armenia be excluded from the Commonwealth of Independent States defense ministers' meeting, beginning today in Baku, because Armenia was occupying Azerbaijani territory.

Tensions between the two ex-Soviet republics remain high over Nagorno-Karabakh -- an enclave within Azerbaijan that has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since a war in the early 1990s that killed 30,000 people and drove about 1 million people from their homes.

Sporadic border clashes regularly break out, and a lack of resolution has hampered development throughout the strategic Caucasus region.

Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Seiran Shakhsuvarian said a delegation would not attend the Baku meeting because Azerbaijani officials could not guarantee the Armenians would be adequately protected.

Azerbaijani Defense Ministry spokesman Ilgar Verdiyev said Armenia's complaints about a lack of security "do not correspond to reality."

"We came out against the participation at the meeting of occupier-countries - Armenia - which occupies 20 percent of territory long held by Azerbaijan," Verdiyev said.

/www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/