Azerbaijan has “reestablished its sovereignty” over Nagorno-Karabakh, after a lightning victory over the Armenian separatists who “started” to lay down their arms, the Azerbaijani president welcomed on Wednesday.
“Most” of the forces and equipment of the Armenian separatists were “destroyed”, added President Ilham Aliyev during a press conference, adding that according to him the Armenian authorities had demonstrated “political competence” in n not intervening directly in the conflict.
Defeated within 24 hours, the separatists announced in a press release the signing of “an agreement on a complete cessation of hostilities at 1:00 p.m. (09:00 GMT) with the mediation of the command of the Russian peace forces.”
According to them, the clashes left at least 200 dead and 400 injured.
On Wednesday evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that negotiations on the future of the enclave would take place with “the mediation” of Russian forces deployed on the ground.
Two Russian troops were killed Wednesday when their car was fired upon, the Russian Defense Ministry announced, without saying which side was responsible.
In detail, the ceasefire agreement, confirmed by Baku, provides for “the withdrawal of the remaining units and servicemen of the armed forces of Armenia” and “the dissolution and complete disarmament of the Army’s formations defense of Nagorno-Karabakh”.
The separatists agreed to hold first talks on the “reintegration” of this territory into Azerbaijan on Thursday in the Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh.
On the eve of these discussions, Hikmet Hajiev, an advisor to the Azerbaijani president, assured that Azerbaijan had “the objective of the peaceful reintegration of the Armenians of Karabakh” and a “normalization” of relations with Armenia.
He promised “safe passage” to the Armenian separatist forces, ensuring that “all actions” carried out “on the ground” were coordinated with the Russian peacekeeping contingent.
This Azerbaijani victory, however, fuels fears of a massive departure of the 120,000 inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh, while images broadcast by local media showed a crowd gathered at the airport, controlled by the Russians, of Stepanakert, the capital of the separatists .
More than 10,000 people, including women, children and the elderly have already been evacuated from the enclave, an Armenian separatist official said Wednesday evening.
“We are obviously following the deterioration of the humanitarian situation very, very closely” in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been “exacerbated by attacks from Azerbaijan,” a White House spokesperson said on Wednesday.
“We want the suspension of military operations to be necessary and lasting because of the chaos it causes for civilian populations,” said John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, after the signing of the ceasefire .
However, Armenia accused the Azerbaijani army on Wednesday of having opened fire with light weapons on its positions on the border between the two countries, after the establishment of the ceasefire.
“Units of the Azerbaijani armed forces fired from small arms at Armenian combat outposts near Sotk,” in a border region, the Armenian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The capitulation of the separatists increased pressure on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, criticized for not having sent aid to Nagorno-Karabakh.
The day after clashes in front of the government headquarters, thousands of demonstrators gathered again on Wednesday evening and clashes broke out with the police. Pashinian “must leave, he cannot lead the country,” declared one of them, Sarguis Hayats, a twenty-year-old musician.
Using the oil windfall to strengthen his army, Ilham Aliev is on the verge of succeeding in his challenge of regaining control of this region mainly populated by Armenians, which was the scene of two wars between the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus and are Azerbaijan and Armenia: one from 1988 to 1994 (30,000 deaths) and the other in the fall of 2020 (6,500 deaths).
This victory “will certainly increase the popularity of Ilham Aliev”, in power for twenty years, but he will now have to “keep his promise to ensure the rights of the Armenians of Karabakh”, underlined Shahin Hajiev, an Azerbaijani expert. independent.
In Baku, the population welcomed this success in the streets. “This is a good thing for Azerbaijan,” Elbrus Sahverdiev, a 37-year-old business manager, told AFP. “This marks the end of Armenia,” he said, a sign of the stubborn hatred towards this neighboring state.
Cornered by the firepower of Azerbaijani units, the separatists folded in 24 hours.
Totally absorbed by the war in Ukraine for more than a year and a half, Russia played a mediating role in the signing of this ceasefire, said the separatists and Baku. But Moscow, which judges that the crisis in Karabakh is an “internal affair” of Azerbaijan, has so far said nothing about the agreement.
Fearing that the resumption of hostilities would destabilize the entire Caucasus, the West and Russia had called for an immediate end to the fighting, as of Tuesday.
Calls ignored by the Azerbaijani president – supported by his historic Turkish ally.
The Azerbaijani authorities launched an “anti-terrorist” operation in Karabakh on Tuesday, following the death of six people in the explosion of mines planted, they claimed, by Armenian “saboteurs”.
Considered as a region central to its history by Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed its independence from Azerbaijan with the support of Yerevan at the time of the dislocation of the USSR in 1991.
20/09/2023 23:10:52 – Baku (AFP) © 2023 AFP
