Nagorno-Karabakh: thousands of residents flee to Armenia, despite Azerbaijan’s promise to “guarantee” the rights of those who remain

Thousands of residents of Nagorno-Karabakh have taken refuge in Armenia, despite Azerbaijan’s promise, reiterated Monday September 25 by its president, Ilham Aliev, that the rights of the Armenians who will remain in this enclave conquered last week by its army would be “guaranteed”.

All people living there, “regardless of ethnicity, are citizens of Azerbaijan. Their rights will be guaranteed by the Azerbaijani state,” he said during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Nakhchivan, a strip of land nestled between Armenia and Iran and attached to Azerbaijan in 1923. “We hope that Armenia will seize the peaceful hand extended to it,” said Mr. Erdogan.

The visit of the Turkish head of state, who plays a major role in this part of the Caucasus, has a strong symbolic value, just a few days after the lightning victory of Azerbaijani soldiers against the troops of the self-proclaimed “republic” of Nagorno-Karabakh , this region mainly populated by Armenians and attached to Azerbaijan in 1921 by Soviet power.

Russia, which sees the Caucasus as its backyard and deployed a peacekeeping force in this disputed territory three years ago, for its part firmly rejected on Monday the criticisms expressed the day before by the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pachinian. “We are categorically against attempts to place responsibility on the Russian side and the Russian peacekeeping forces,” insisted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov, rejecting any “reproaches” for supposed failings.

Russian diplomacy went so far as to accuse Armenia, “hostage to the geopolitical games of the West”, of seeking to “destroy” bilateral relations. “We are convinced that the Armenian authorities are making a huge mistake by knowingly seeking to destroy Russian-Armenian ties, which have many facets and were founded centuries ago, and by making its country a hostage to the geopolitical games of the West,” she said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the influx of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh onto Armenian soil continued on Monday, with huge traffic jams reported on the only road linking its capital, Stepanakert, to Armenia. In total, 6,650 people “forcibly displaced” from this enclave have entered Armenia since Sunday, after the defeat of the separatist fighters, according to the latest report from the Armenian government. On the Azerbaijani side, in localities close to Nagorno-Karabakh, such as Tartar and Beylagan, many of those who had to leave this region in the past want to reside there again.

EU receives Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives

The European Union (EU), for its part, was to receive senior representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels on Tuesday, two former Soviet republics which clashed militarily in Nagorno-Karabakh from 1988 to 1994 (30,000 deaths). and in the fall of 2020 (6,500 deaths).

Simon Mordue, principal diplomatic advisor to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, will chair this meeting. Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as France and Germany, will be represented by their national security advisers. The EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Estonian diplomat Toivo Klaar, will also participate in this meeting. The Armenian Prime Minister and the Azerbaijani President are expected at a meeting of the European Political Community, which brings together around fifty European countries, on October 5 in Granada, in the south of Spain.