Fighting continues as Armeni, Azeri leaders meet

VIENNA (Reuters) – Soldiers from Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh were killed early on Tuesday, hours after the Armenian and Azeri presidents agreed on the need for a peaceful settlement to the conflict in the breakaway region where violence flared again last month.

Monday’s meeting between Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev in Vienna was the first since fighting between Armenian-backed separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forces restarted. The resurgence in violence has killed dozens of people and pushed relations between the neighbors to their worst in years.

“The presidents reiterated their commitment to the ceasefire and the peaceful settlement of the conflict,” the United States, France and Russia said in a joint statement after the meeting.

“To reduce the risk of further violence, they agreed to finalize in the shortest possible time an OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] investigative mechanism.”

The two leaders also agreed to fix a time and place for their meeting in June and that the OSCE would quickly finalize a plan to monitor the cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh, it said.

A cease-fire agreed a month ago has stopped the short conflict from becoming an all-out war, but residents say gunfire and shelling still echo nightly, and people are still being killed.

In a sign of continued high tensions, a soldier from Nagorno-Karabakh was killed just after midnight on Tuesday as a result of shooting from Azerbaijan’s side, Nagorno-Karabakh’s defense ministry said.

An Azeri soldier was also killed “in a cease-fire violation,” Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said.

After Monday’s meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he sensed there was now a desire on both sides for a compromise and that Russia was ready to do what it could to broker a better deal, according to RIA, Russia’s international news agency.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in Vienna for meetings on Syria and Libya, held one-on-one talks with the Armenian and Azeri leaders.