Azeri Defense Minister Safar Abiyev and his Armenian counterpart Serge Sarkissian held talks Friday in a bid to lower tensions between the two Caucasus rivals, officials said.
The two ministers also "discussed ways to strengthen the cease-fire regime," an Azeri defense ministry spokesman said. It was the second meeting between the men on the border between their two countries.
In Yerevan, the Armenian defense minister said he hoped that the meeting would help "in the future to eliminate isolated incidents which sometimes take place on the border."
The meeting took place in Azerbaijan's Nakhichivan autonomous republic, which is located separate from Azerbaijan proper on the other side of Armenia and borders Iran and Turkey.
Azeri officials said the two defense ministers agreed to create a personal hotline, but the Armenian defense ministry said the idea was still being studied.
Abiyev and Sarkissian however agreed to exchange all remaining prisoners from the 12-year Nagorno Karabakh conflict, both sides said.
Azerbaijan says that it does not hold any Armenians captive from the war, though prisoners are sometimes captured along the frontline. Two were released in July, this year.
At the same time, however, Baku maintains that more than 4,000 of its soldiers are unaccounted for, of which 768 could be prisoners. Experts however question the high number of POWs.
The ministers' parley follows a visit to the region from the co-chairs from the OSCE's "Minsk Group," which is overseeing talks between the two countries to reach a final settlement in the Karabakh conflict.
Minsk Group officials said that their trip focused on reducing tensions along the frontline, which has seen some 100 deaths this year despite a cease-fire regime.
Baku and Yerevan fought an undeclared war, after Karabakh, a mostly ethnic Armenian enclave located in Azerbaijan, broke away from Baku in the Soviet Union's last years in 1988 and tried to unite with Armenia proper.
A cease-fire was signed in 1994, but the peace talks overseen by the OSCE remain deadlocked over Nagorny-Karabakh's future status within Azerbaijan -- BAKU (AFP)
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