Armenia, Azerbaijan Declare Cease-Fire : Warfare: The disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh did not participate in the talks.

MOSCOW — The defense ministers of the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, whose people have been locked in warfare for four years, have pledged to cease hostilities for two months starting at the week’s end, Russian newspapers reported Wednesday.

Defense Ministers Vazgen Sarkasyan of Armenia and Rakhim Gaziyev of Azerbaijan shook hands and kissed after signing the agreement, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported in a front-page story.

Azerbaijanis and Armenians have fought for four years over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. More than 3,000 people have been killed. The warfare intensified and spread to the regions near the border between the two republics late last year, when the Soviet Union disintegrated and they became independent countries.

Several truces have been signed before but none has held. An obvious hole in the current cease-fire: The government of Nagorno-Karabakh, which considers itself independent from both Azerbaijan and Armenia, did not participate in the negotiations.

Despite Wednesday’s announced agreement, the warfare showed no signs of abating. Armenia accused Azerbaijan of bombing Stepanakert, the regional capital of Nagorno-Karabakh; Azerbaijan accused Armenia of stepping up attacks on areas populated by Azerbaijanis.

As soon as he returned to Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, Gaziyev cast skepticism on the likelihood that the warring sides will abide by this latest cease-fire. “Until a clear mechanism for a cease-fire is elaborated, settlement of the Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict is out of the question,” he was quoted as saying by the Azerinform news service from Baku.

But Russian Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev, who helped to broker the truce, said he thinks this cease-fire will hold where others failed. If the two sides keep fighting, he said, peacekeeping troops from the Commonwealth of Independent States or the United Nations will have to intervene.

“I want to believe that finally this senseless war will stop,” Grachev told the Izvestia newspaper. “Both ministers gave their word that they will do everything in their power to put an end to this madness.”

As specified by the truce, Russia and republics of the former Soviet Union will send peacekeeping troops to the region as observers.

Meantime, at the United Nations on Wednesday, Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan called on the world to guarantee the people of Nagorno-Karabakh their own homeland, Reuters news service reported. Azerbaijan has administered the predominantly Armenian territory since 1923.

Ter-Petrosyan insisted that the 150,000 people of Nagorno-Karabakh “cannot be reduced to an ethnic minority, that they cannot be denied the right of self-determination and that this population cannot be sacrificed using the principle of territorial integrity as a cover.”

“In this respect, it is time that the protection of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh be secured through permanent international guarantees,” he said.

Ter-Petrosyan said the first step toward resolution of the conflict must be the establishment of a cease-fire, followed by negotiations between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh on the status of the territory. He appealed to the United Nations, which has already sent fact-finding missions to the region, to help foster peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“Just as Armenia has achieved democracy and independence through constitutional means and without violence, it also seeks to establish peace and justice through international law,” the Armenian leader said.