Azerbaijan attack
Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh: ceasefire agreed – Armenian forces should surrender
On Tuesday, Azerbaijan attacked the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is mainly inhabited by Armenians
© SNA / Imago Images
On Tuesday morning, Azerbaijan launched attacks against the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Baku wants to conquer the area inhabited by Armenians. Dozens of people were killed and injured. Now there is a ceasefire in which the Armenian fighters are supposed to surrender.
One day after the start of an Azerbaijani military operation, a ceasefire was agreed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict region. The agreement was brokered by Russian soldiers stationed in the area and has been in effect since 1 p.m. local time (11 a.m. CEST), the Azerbaijani state news agency Azertac reported on Wednesday, citing the Defense Ministry in Baku. The Armenian fighters will be given the opportunity to leave their positions and surrender.
The authorities of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in the South Caucasus had accepted a corresponding proposal from the Russian side, the Armenian news agency Armenpress reported on Wednesday. “In the current situation, the measures taken by the international community to end the war and resolve the situation are inadequate,” Armenpress quoted an official statement as saying. “Taking this into account, the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh accept the proposal of the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent regarding a ceasefire.”
Azerbaijan wants to conquer Nagorno-Karabakh
According to the Russian agency Interfax, it is also said to have been agreed that remaining units of the Armenian army will be withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh and that Karabakh fighters will hand over their weapons. It was initially unclear whether this would actually be implemented. There was initially no official confirmation from the Russian side. According to media reports, the Armenian forces are said to have surrendered, as reported by Politico journalist Gabriel Gavin, citing Baku. “Illegal Armenian armed groups in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan are laying down their weapons, leaving their combat positions and completely disarming,” he quoted the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry as saying.
The authoritarian one Azerbaijan had begun a broad military operation to conquer Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday morning. Although the region is located on Azerbaijani territory, the majority of it is inhabited by Armenians. The two former Soviet countries have been fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh for decades. The ceasefire after the last war in 2020, in which Azerbaijan, which was well-armed thanks to gas and oil revenues, had already conquered large parts of Karabakh, was repeatedly broken.
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Russia is traditionally considered Armenia’s protective power and has stationed its own soldiers in the conflict region. Now, however, Moscow needs its fighters primarily for its own war of aggression against Ukraine. Observers had therefore already feared that Azerbaijan could use this unstable situation for military action. Even before the latest shelling began, the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh was catastrophic because Azerbaijan blocked Armenia’s only access to the exclave – the so-called Lachin corridor.
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