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Post by Admin on Sept 19, 2023 12:35:03 GMT
Azerbaijan's defence ministry says it has begun "anti-terrorist" operations in areas of Nagorno-Karabakh under Armenian control. Tensions have been high for months surrounding the breakaway ethnic Armenian enclave, recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Air raid sirens and mortar fire were heard in Karabakh's main city. Eleven Azerbaijani police and civilians have been reported killed in a mine blast and another incident. Defence officials in the breakaway region said the Azerbaijani military had "violated the ceasefire along the entire line of contact with missile-artillery strikes". Other Karabakh representatives spoke of a "large-scale military offensive". The two neighbours, Azerbaijan and Armenia, have gone to war twice over Nagorno-Karabakh, first in the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union and again in 2020. Since December, Azerbaijan has mounted an effective blockade of the only route into the enclave from Armenia, known as the Lachin Corridor. On Tuesday, the defence ministry in Baku accused Armenian forces of "systematic shelling" of its army positions and said it had responded by launching "local, anti-terrorist activities... to disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of Armenia's armed forces from our territories". It insisted it was not targeting civilians or civilian facilities, but instead said "only legitimate military targets are being incapacitated by the use of high-precision weapons". Armenia's defence ministry said that claims of Armenian military fire did not correspond with reality. The sound of artillery and gunfire could be heard on Tuesday from the Karabakh regional capital Khankendi, known as Stepanakert by Armenians. An estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenians live in the mountainous enclave. Journalist Siranush Sargsyan said residential areas of the city had been hit, including a building next door to her. Officials in Armenia added that as of 14:00 (10:00 GMT), the situation on the country's own borders was "relatively stable". Russia's foreign ministry said it had been warned of the Azerbaijani offensive only minutes in advance and urged both countries to respect a ceasefire signed after the war in 2020. The EU's regional special representative, Toivo Klaar, said there was "urgent need for immediate ceasefire". www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66851975
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Post by Admin on Sept 23, 2023 1:24:07 GMT
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Ethnic Armenian separatists in Azerbaijan’s region of Nagorno-Karabakh surrendered arms Friday to Russian peacekeepers, Russia’s Defense Ministry said, two days after Azerbaijan reclaimed control of the breakaway region that has long been at the center of a conflict with neighboring Armenia.
The ethnic Armenian armed groups handed over six armored vehicles, more than 800 small arms units and 5,000 rounds of ammunition to the peacekeepers, the ministry said in a statement.
Azerbaijan on Tuesday launched a major military operation against Armenian positions in what it called an “anti-terrorist operation,” demanding that the Armenians lay down arms and that the separatist government disband. A day later, Nagorno-Karabakh authorities agreed to the military demands, but talks on how to reintegrate the region into Azerbaijan are continuing.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it recorded two ceasefire violations in the region Friday but said there were no casualties and that it was conducting an investigation in cooperation with Azerbaijan and representatives from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia has been a key partner of Armenia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 but ties between the two have become strained recently as Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has criticized Russia’s failure to protect Nagorno-Karabakh and argued that Armenia needs to turn to the West to ensure its security. Moscow, in turn, has expressed dismay about Pashinyan’s pro-Western tilt.
Earlier Friday, Azerbaijan said it was delivering food and other humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been cut off from supplies since late last year because of Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor, the region’s only link to Armenia.
The ordeal for Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 people worsened this week, as thousands fled the recent fighting without being able to take food with them.
Improving the supply of food and other basic needs will be a key issue in building stability in the region, which is within Azerbaijan but which has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since 1994.
Pashinyan on Friday said at a government meeting that there was no immediate need for the region’s ethnic Armenians to leave their homes, but said Armenia is prepared to receive as many as 40,000 evacuees if needed.
Anxiety is high among the region’s people.
“The majority of the population wants to be evacuated to Armenia. We cannot live with Azerbaijan,” 21-year-old Hayk Harutunyan said in Stepanakert, the regional capital.
“During the last 30 years thousands of Armenians were killed, our brothers and sisters,” he told The Associated Press by telephone, referring to decades of conflict over the region. “Azerbaijan’s goal is the annihilation of the Armenian nation; how can we live with those who want to kill us?”
Harutunyan said city is full of refugees who fled areas that came under control of Azerbaijani forces this week,
“These people left their homes empty-handed, they had no food, no clothes, no place to stay,” he said.
More than 800 people, including 440 children, were at a Russian peacekeeping base Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday and weren’t immediately able to return home, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
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Post by Admin on Sept 24, 2023 21:18:53 GMT
‘Diluting’ Russian influence It is not yet clear whether Armenia’s efforts to create new international partnerships are motivated solely by its attempts to bolster its security, or whether these attempts constitute a broader Western pivot.
“As a small state, it’s quite risky for Armenia to do a U-turn, a big geopolitical jump. We know the risks for that,” Anna Ohanyan, an expert in Russian foreign policy and professor at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, told CNN.
Rather than seeking to cut ties with Russia entirely, Armenia is merely “diluting” its influence, Ohanyan said.
But while the steps taken so far might be modest, they could set Armenia down a path from which it is hard to turn back. “If Putin woke up tomorrow and all of a sudden started to pursue different types of policies – providing some specific security guarantees – I do not think that Armenia’s foreign policy would recalibrate back,” said Ohanyan.
“If Russia provided a full spectrum of security for Armenia, that would mean a much deeper integration of Armenia into the Russia neo-imperial sphere, similar to Belarus,” she said – a fate that Armenia’s Velvet Revolution signaled it “will not stand for.”
Stuck in the middle? Armenia’s leaders are not unaware of the challenges ahead. Speaking to La Repubblica, Pashinyan said he feared that Armenia could end up stuck in the middle, caught between Russia and the West.
“Western countries or experts… qualify Armenia as a pro-Russian country. On the other hand, many circles in Russia consider Armenia or its government… pro-Western,” he said.
Not able to do enough to please either side, Armenia may risk alienating both, leaving itself exposed.
Many in Yerevan have already begun to fear a potential Russian rebuke. This could be economic, since Russia controls huge sections of Armenia’s economy, from telecommunications to energy. The Kremlin banned dairy imports from Armenia in April – ostensibly after some newly discovered health concerns, but in what Ohanyan suggested was a punishment for Yerevan considering the ICC ratification.
Or it could be something worse. “We have to remember that Russia has a huge destructive potential in the region,” said Ter-Matevosyan, referring to Russia’s sizable military base north of Yerevan.
For Ter-Matevosyan, the current Armenian government, whose “ideological roots come from… liberal Western values,” have taken this “opportune moment” to implement “some of their ideas, thoughts and beliefs that they cherished for many years.”
“Will they succeed or not? Time will show. But what is going to be the price for this shift, this diversification? That’s the biggest question that many are asking in Armenia.”
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Post by Admin on Sept 24, 2023 22:07:33 GMT
Armenia says 1,050 people have crossed into the country from Nagorno-Karabakh, days after the majority ethnic Armenian enclave was seized by Azerbaijan. They entered after the government in Yerevan announced plans to move those made homeless by the fighting. Azerbaijan retook the area inhabited by some 120,000 ethnic Armenians early this week and says it wants to re-integrate them as "equal citizens". But Armenia has warned they may face ethnic cleansing. "As of 22:00 local time (18:00 GMT), 1,050 people entered Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh," the Armenian government said in a statement on Sunday. It said many of them had already been provided with government-funded housing. The Armenian separatist forces in the territory agreed to disarm on Wednesday, following a lightning Azerbaijani military offensive. Armenia says it will help anyone leaving Nagorno-Karabakh - but has repeatedly said a mass exodus would be the fault of the Azerbaijani authorities. In a TV address on Sunday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said many inside the enclave would "see expulsion from the homeland as the only way out" unless Azerbaijan provided "real living conditions" and "effective mechanisms of protection against ethnic cleansing". He repeated that his government was prepared to "lovingly welcome our brothers and sisters". But David Babayan, an adviser to Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian leader Samvel Shahramanyan, told Reuters he expected almost everyone to leave. His people "do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan - 99.9% prefer to leave our historic lands", he said. "The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people and for the whole civilised world," he told Reuters. "Those responsible for our fate will one day have to answer before God for their sins." Nagorno-Karabakh - a mountainous region in the South Caucasus - is recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan, but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians for three decades. The enclave has been supported by Armenia - but also by their ally, Russia, which has had hundreds of soldiers there for years. Five Russian peacekeepers were killed - alongside at least 200 ethnic Armenians and dozens of Azerbaijani soldiers - as Azerbaijan's army swept in last week. On Sunday, Azerbaijan's defence ministry said it had confiscated more military equipment including a large number of rockets, artillery shells, mines and ammunition.
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Post by Admin on Sept 24, 2023 23:14:19 GMT
Azerbaijan's Ambassador to the UK has told Sky News that he rejects Armenia's claims that his country will commit ethnic cleansing.
Elin Suleymanov also said the rights of ethnic Armenians escaping Nagorno-Karabakh will be protected by Azerbaijan.
It comes as 120,000 Armenians living in the war-torn region leave for Armenia, after Azerbaijan regained control of the breakaway region.
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