Azerbaijan said on Wednesday it had halted military action in the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region after Armenian separatist forces there surrendered and agreed to a truce whose terms indicated the area would return to Baku’s control, Reuters reports.
Russian peacekeepers shelter refugees from Stepanakert during Azerbaijan’s offensivePhoto: AFP / AFP / Profimedia
Ethnic Armenians in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region have accepted a Russian ceasefire proposal, 24 hours after Azerbaijan launched an offensive to seize control of the enclave, leaving dozens dead and hundreds injured.
Under the deal, confirmed by both sides and effective from 1pm (0900 GMT) on Wednesday, separatist forces will disband and disarm, and talks on the future of the region and the ethnic Armenians who live there will begin on Thursday.
Karabah, a mountainous area in the wider volatile South Caucasus region, is internationally recognized as Azerbaijan’s territory, but part of it has been ruled by separatist Armenian authorities who say the area is their ancestral homeland.
Fearing what might happen in the future, many ethnic Armenians headed to the airport in Stepanakert, the capital of the region, known as Khankendi by Azerbaijan. Others took shelter with Russian peacekeepers.
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Azerbaijan’s demands have been accepted.Karabakh separatists agree to withdraw their troops.
Azerbaijan will establish full control over Karabakh.
In fact, it is a surrender!
The “Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army” will be disbanded and disarmed.
Armenians are leaving… pic.twitter.com/EnHMpQR5Pq
— Slava Ukraini uD83CuDDFAuD83CuDDE6 In Ukraine | News, Updates (@Heroiam_Slava) September 20, 2023
Azerbaijan has said it plans to integrate the area’s 120,000 ethnic Armenians and that their rights will be protected by the constitution.
But some Armenians – given that the region has been at the center of two wars since the fall of the USSR in 1991 – are skeptical, and neighboring Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of trying to ethnically cleanse the territory, which Baku denies.
“Basically, they are telling us that we have to leave, not stay here or accept that this is a part of Azerbaijan – this is basically a typical ethnic cleansing operation,” Ruben Vardanyan, a former official, told Reuters high-ranking in the ethnic Armenian administration of Karabakh.
He said nearly 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the fighting.
Reuters could not verify this.
The separatists surrender their weapons
The formal surrender of the separatist fighters and the surrender of their weapons and equipment was expected later on Wednesday.
Armenia, which says it has no military forces in Karabakh despite Azeri claims, has not intervened militarily.
It was unclear how many ethnic Armenians would choose to remain in Karabah.
The Russian Defense Ministry, which has thousands of peacekeepers there, released images of Karabakh Armenians receiving temporary shelter in a makeshift Russian military facility.
An agreement that gives rise to discontent in Armenia
The result, a military victory for Turkey-backed Azerbaijan, whose forces far outnumbered those of the separatists, could cause political turmoil in neighboring Armenia, where some political forces are angry that Yerevan could not do more to protect them the Karabakh Armenians.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian was already facing calls from some opponents on Wednesday to resign.
Some Armenians are also angry that Russia, which has peacekeeping troops there and helped negotiate an earlier ceasefire deal in 2020 after a 44-day war, has failed to stop Azerbaijan.
The Kremlin rejected that criticism on Wednesday, and President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying that Russian peacekeepers would protect Karabakh’s civilian population.
The separatists who rule the self-styled “Republic of Artsakh” said they were forced to accept Azerbaijan’s terms – delivered by Russian peacekeepers – after the Azeri army broke through their lines and seized a number of strategic locations, in while the world did nothing.
“The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh accept the proposal of the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent to cease fire,” they said in a statement.
Azerbaijan said it could no longer tolerate a situation it considered a threat to its security and territorial sovereignty.
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannissyan told Reuters that Karabakh Armenians could “in an ideal world” live under Azeri rule, but that historical experience made that difficult to imagine.
