Armenia To Participate In Baku European Games

Armenia says it will participate in the inaugural European Games in Azerbaijan later this year.

Iveta Tonoyan, a spokeswoman for the Armenian National Olympic Committee’s (ANOC) chairman, said the decision was made by the ANOC’s executive committee on March 10.

The European Games, an event similar to the Olympics but limited to athletes from Europe, will be held in June in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku.

Armenia is expected to be represented at the competition in the sambo martial art, shooting, judo, wrestling, boxing, and taekwondo.

Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years.

Armenian-backed separatists seized the mainly Armenian-populated region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people and displaced many more.

There has been an increase of deadly incidents along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and around Nagorno-Karabakh.