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| - Azerbaijan and Armenia accused each other Wednesday of using banned weapons containing white phosphorus during weeks of recent fighting for control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Wounded servicemen and medical staff at a hospital in the Armenian capital Yerevan told AFP the fighters had suffered burns consistent with the use of phosphorus or another chemical agent. An Azerbaijani official made a similar claim to AFP last month. Fierce clashes erupted in late September between Azerbaijan's army and separatists backed by Armenia over the mountainous region that claimed independence in the 1990s. The hostilities claimed more than 5,000 lives including 144 civilians and ended after the ex-Soviet rivals agreed to a Moscow-brokered peace deal in November that saw Armenian separatists cede swathes of territory. Rights ombudsman in Nagorno-Karabakh, Artak Beglaryan, told AFP his office had "collected an abundance of evidence that Azerbaijanis used phosphorus munitions" during the six weeks of clashes. The defence ministry in Baku denied the accusation, pointing the finger instead at Armenian forces. "The Azerbaijani army does not have phosphorus munitions," ministry spokesman Vagif Dyargahly told AFP. "We couldn't have used something we don't have." Instead, he claimed that "Armenia used phosphorus bombs against us". Gazanfar Ahmadov, the director of Azerbaijan's National Agency for Mine Action told AFP last month that Armenian forces had launched strikes with weapons containing phosphorus several times during the recent fighting. The Armenian and Azerbaijani branches of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) declined to comment directly on the allegations. But Ilaha Guseynova of ICRC's Baku representation told AFP, said the organisation "is in confidential talks with the parties to the conflict regarding allegations of the violations of international humanitarian law and the rules of war". In a hospital in the Armenian capital Yerevan overwhelmed with wounded servicemen, AFP journalists saw soldiers with severe burns who claimed that Azerbaijani forces had used phosphorus munitions against them. "There was a drone attack on October 3. I have severe burns... and learned that traces of phosphorus were found on my body," Meruzhan Kochinyan, 19, told AFP. Fellow soldier, 19-year-old Vardges Ovakimyan, said his burns were healing slowly "because there was phosphorus on my wounds". The hospital's deputy director, Karine Babayan said the injuries were consistent with the use of phosphorus or were caused by another "chemical agent". Phosphorus is a prohibited weapon under international law but is allowed to illuminate battlefields and for use as a smoke screen. str-im/jbr/jj
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