By Felix Gentle Reuters
Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh stated on Thursday they had been dissolving the breakaway statelet that they had defended for 3 a long time, the place greater than half the inhabitants has fled since Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive final week.
In a press release, they stated their self-declared Republic of Artsakh would “stop to exist” by Jan. 1, in what amounted to a proper capitulation to Azerbaijan.
For Azerbaijan and its president, Ilham Aliyev, the end result is a triumphant restoration of sovereignty over an space that’s internationally recognised as a part of its territory however whose ethnic Armenian majority received de facto independence in a struggle within the Nineties.
For Armenians, it’s a defeat and a nationwide tragedy.
Armenia stated that by Thursday morning, 65,036 folks had crossed into its territory, out of an estimated inhabitants of 120,000.
“Evaluation of the scenario reveals that within the coming days there will probably be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Interfax information company quoted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as saying. “That is an act of ethnic cleaning.”
Azerbaijan denies that accusation, saying it’s not forcing folks to go away and that it’ll peacefully reintegrate the Karabakh area and assure the civic rights of the ethnic Armenians.
Karabakh Armenians say they don’t belief that promise, aware of an extended historical past of bloodshed between the 2 sides together with two wars because the break-up of the Soviet Union. For days they’ve fled en masse down the snaking mountain street by way of Azerbaijan that connects Karabakh to Armenia.
The US and different Western governments have expressed alarm over the humanitarian disaster and demanded entry for worldwide observers to observe Azerbaijan’s therapy of the native inhabitants.
Samantha Energy, head of the U.S. Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID), stated this week she had heard “very troubling stories of violence towards civilians”.
Azerbaijan stated Aliyev had advised her at a gathering on Wednesday that the rights of ethnic Armenians can be protected by legislation, like these of different minorities.
“The Azerbaijani president famous that the civilian inhabitants had not been harmed in the course of the anti-terrorist measures, and solely unlawful Armenian armed formations and navy amenities had been focused,” a press release stated.
Aliyev’s workplace stated on Thursday he was visiting Jabrayil, a metropolis on the southern fringe of Karabakh that was destroyed by Armenian forces within the Nineties, which Azerbaijan recaptured in 2020 and is now rebuilding.
FORMER MINISTER CHARGED WITH FINANCING TERRORISM
Whereas saying he had no quarrel with atypical Karabakh Armenians, Aliyev final week described their leaders as a “legal junta” that will be dropped at justice.
A former head of Karabakh’s authorities, Ruben Vardanyan, was arrested on Wednesday as he tried to cross into Armenia. Azerbaijan’s state safety service stated on Thursday he was being charged with financing terrorism and with illegally crossing the Azerbaijani border final 12 months.
David Babayan, an adviser to the Karabakh management, stated in a press release he was voluntarily giving himself as much as the Azerbaijani authorities.
Mass displacements have been a function of the Karabakh battle because it broke out within the late Nineteen Eighties because the Soviet Union headed in the direction of collapse.
Between 1988 and 1994 about 500,000 Azerbaijanis from Karabakh and the areas round it had been expelled from their houses, whereas the battle prompted 350,000 Armenians to go away Azerbaijan and 186,000 Azerbaijanis to go away Armenia, in accordance with “Black Backyard: Armenia and Azerbaijan Via Peace and Struggle”, a 2003 e-book by Caucasus scholar and analyst Thomas de Waal.
Lots of the Armenians escaping this week in closely laden vehicles, vans, buses and even tractors stated they had been hungry and fearful.
“This is likely one of the darkest pages of Armenian historical past,” stated Father David, a 33-year-old Armenian priest who got here to the border to supply non secular assist for these arriving. “The entire of Armenian historical past is filled with hardships.”
