How France became the target of Azerbaijan’s smear campaign

How France became the target of Azerbaijan’s smear campaign

Post By World Armenia, Azerbaijan, diplomacy, Europe, Features, Forbidden Stories, France, Ilham Aliyev, Nagorno-Karabakh

What do the absence of French observers at Azerbaijan’s February 7 presidential election, a group denouncing “French colonialism” and an online campaign targeting the 2024 Paris Olympics have in common? They are three facets of a new offensive strategy adopted by Azerbaijani diplomacy towards France. FRANCE 24 investigated this shift with the Forbidden Stories consortium and other media outlets as part of “The Baku Connection” project.

Azerbaijan’s February 7 presidential election, which handed President Ilham Aliyev an unsurprising and unopposed victory with 92% of the vote and a fifth term in office, provided the backdrop for the latest illustration of deteriorating Franco-Azerbaijani relations.

For the first time in at least a decade, there were no French elected representatives or independent observers on the team of international observers monitoring the vote. As Aliyev tightens his grip on power and the country’s electoral system, there were fewer West European nationals on the international monitoring team. But a few German, Austrian, Spanish and Italian nationals did make it on the observer mission.

02:05

Abzas media’s fearless journalists ended up in jail for delving into stories that challenged Azerbaijan’s regime.

Following their arrest, 15 media, coordinated by Forbidden Stories, joined forces to carry on their investigations. © Forbidden Stories

Escalating tensions

The absence of a French presence on the observer team is the result of a disaccord between France and Azerbaijan. French parliamentarians who have visited the former Soviet republic in the past as election observers no longer want to hear about it. “When you have a president who systematically gets elected with over 80% of the vote, I wouldn’t call that free and fair elections,” said Claude Kern, senator from France’s eastern Bas-Rhin region, who was part of the French delegation for the 2018 presidential election.

Even the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan at the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, has experienced an exodus of almost all its members in recent months.

Azerbaijan also appears to have closed the door on the few independent French nationals wishing to observe the presidential election on the ground. This was the case with journalist Jean-Michel Brun, who contributes to the websites, “Musulmans de France” and “Gazette du Caucase”, two portals with a very pro-Azerbaijani slant.

His candidacy was rejected by Azerbaijani authorities, without explanation, a few days before the election. “Relations with Azerbaijan are so rotten at the moment that they may have decided not to invite any French people,” said Brun. When contacted by FRANCE 24 and Forbidden Stories, Azerbaijani authorities did not respond to the reasons for the absence of French observers.

The election observer issue is part of a wider context of escalating bilateral tensions. The month of December was marked by a particularly sharp deterioration: a Frenchman was arrested in Baku and accused of espionage, Azerbaijan then expelled two French diplomats, Paris promptly responded, declaring two Azerbaijani embassy officials persona non grata. The diplomatic tit-for-tat was accompanied by acerbic statements from both sides.

For French nationals in Azerbaijan, the message was clear. “French authorities made us understand that we had to be careful because we could be expelled overnight,” confided a Frenchman living in Azerbaijan who did not wish to be named. Despite the strained ties between Paris and Baku, the Frenchman said he was quite satisfied with living conditions in Azerbaijan. When contacted, the French embassy in Azerbaijan did not respond to FRANCE 24 and Forbidden Stories.

The rapid and overt diplomatic deterioration between Azerbaijan and France is a new low, according to experts. “It’s the first time we see this kind of development against a European country, a Western country,” said Altay Goyushov, a political scientist at the Baku Research Institute, an independent Azerbaijani research center. “This is a completely new development, when a French citizen is arrested on spying charges, it’s never happened before,” he noted, adding that Azerbaijani authorities have mostly used “these kind of tactics” against the domestic opposition and the media in the past.

A song against Macron

Historically, it hasn’t always been this way. France, like other European countries, has long been the target of what has come to be called “caviar diplomacy”. It’s a term employed by experts and journalists for over a decade to describe oil-rich Azerbaijan’s particularly lavish and distinctive lobbying strategy, which includes costly official trips for foreign politicians and influencers, and providing expensive gifts and funds for projects such as the renovation of churches. The payback, documented in several news reports, includes soft-power wins for Azerbaijan by securing its influence in Europe’s political and media worlds.

In the past, France held a special place for Baku’s political elites. France is a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, which also includes the US and Russia. Since the early 2000s, Paris has attempted to play a key role, within the Minsk Group, to try to find a diplomatic solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

France was therefore considered an important European power in Baku, one worth wooing and trying to keep on side. For Azerbaijan, this is particularly important since Baku has long believed the Armenian community in France to be very influential in French power circles, a position echoed by several pro-Azerbaijan figures interviewed by FRANCE 24 and the Forbidden Stories consortium.

The September 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, which resulted in Azerbaijan reclaiming a third of the disputed enclave, marked the beginning of the bilateral break. Two years later, in an interview with France 2 TV station, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that France “will never abandon the Armenians”.

The French president’s avowal was viewed as a diplomatic slap by Baku. “It was very frustrating for Ilham Aliyev, who wants to be able to impose his demands on a weak Armenia, which is not the case if Yerevan thinks it can count on French support,” noted Goyushov.

This French support began to take shape after French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna’s October 2023 visit to Armenia when she announced that “France has given its agreement to the conclusion of future contracts with Armenia which will enable the delivery of military equipment to Armenia so that it can ensure its defence”. The announcement sparked disapproval from Aliyev, who accused France of “preparing the ground [for] new wars”.

Azerbaijan then began a diplomatic shift that increasingly resembled a 180-degree turn.

The tone was first set by a song performed on public television and soberly titled, “Emmanuel”. Broadcast a week after Macron’s France 2 interview, the lyrics featured criticisms levelled at the French president – accusing him of “betraying his promises”, for instance – while children punctuated each verse, singing “Emmanuel” in chorus.

It was a very public display of Azerbaijan’s new disaffection for France. Official accusations – such as the one frequently adopted by Elchin Amirbayov, the Azerbaijani president’s special representative for the normalisation of relations with Armenia, accusing France of “undermining the peace efforts” with Armenia – represent just the tip of the iceberg of Baku’s new diplomatic turn. The submerged component includes a number of initiatives aimed at denigrating France.

Outrage over ‘French colonialism’ by the Azerbaijani state

In November 2023, a video highly critical of the organisation of the 2024 Paris Olympics emerged, sparking a media stir in France. According to VIGINUM, the French government agency for the defence against foreign digital interference, it was an influence campaign linked to “an actor close to Azerbaijan”.

In its technical report, seen by FRANCE 24 and Forbidden Stories, VIGINUM concluded that the operation, amplified by fake sites and accounts on social media, is “likely to harm the fundamental interests of the nation”.

On another, parallel track, Azerbaijan is promoting the claims of a new structure called the “Baku Initiative Group”. Its members, independence fighters from French overseas territories and regions such as French Guiana, Martinique, New Caledonia and Guadeloupe, have been denouncing France’s “colonisation” and “neocolonialism”, and have been calling for “decolonisation”.

Watch moreThe Baku Connection in Azerbaijan: ‘They won’t stop our investigations by arresting us’

“At the last Non-Aligned Movement conference [chaired by Azerbaijan] in July 2023 in Baku, we wanted to take stock of the situation in the territories still under French domination, and decided to form the Baku Initiative Group,” explained Jean-Jacob Bicep, president of the People’s Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe, a far-left political party in the French overseas region. “The aim is to make the world aware of France’s colonial policy,” added another representative who asked to remain anonymous.

These pro-independence activists have already been able to make their case against what they call “French colonialism” before the UN on two occasions: first at a conference in September at the UN’s New York headquarters, then at its Geneva office in December. Both events were organised by the Baku Initiative Group.

What does this have to do with Azerbaijan? It’s not just a coincidence that Azerbaijan held the rotating presidency of the Non-Aligned Group at just the right time. The executive director of these “anti-French colonialism” gatherings is Azerbaijani Abbas Abbassov, who has long worked for Azerbaijan’s State Oil Fund.

In addition, a July 2023 roundtable in Baku titled, “Towards the Complete Elimination of Colonialism” was organised by the AIR Center, one of Azerbaijan’s leading think tanks, whose chairman, Farid Shafiyev, is Azerbaijan’s former ambassador to the Czech Republic.

The Baku roundtable ended with an agreement on the establishment of “the Baku Initiative Group against French colonialism”, according to an AIR Center statement. When contacted, the think tank did not respond to questions from FRANCE 24 and Forbidden Stories.

Denouncing the ‘Macron Dictatorship’

The group of French nationals who have attended the Baku Initiative Group meetings includes well-known figures in the pro-Azerbaijani camp, such as journalist Yannick Urrien. “It was Hikmet Hajiyev who asked me to come to a conference of the group in Baku in October 2023,” explained Urrien.

Hikmet Hajiyev is a well-known figure in Azerbaijan power circles: he is the foreign policy advisor to Azerbaijan’s president and a close associate of President Aliyev. “He is the mastermind behind the smear campaigns against other countries, including France,” explained Emmanuel Dupuy, president of the Institute for Prospective and Security in Europe (IPSE) and a former advisor to Azerbaijan for around six years.

Aliyev himself used a speech at a decolonisation conference in Baku in November to deliver a scathing broadside against France. In his address, the Azerbaijani president referred to France more than 20 times, accusing Paris of “inflicting conflict” in the Caucasus and committing “most of the bloody crimes in the colonial history of humanity”.

Some of the French participants in Baku’s decolonisation conferences deny being instrumentalised or prefer to ignore the issue. “It’s none of my business. We seize every opportunity to achieve our goal, and all France has to do is settle its own problems with Azerbaijan,” said Bicep, the leader of the far-left People’s Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe.

Another participant, who asked to remain anonymous, admits that the creation of the Baku Initiative Group came at the best possible time for Azerbaijan, which “doesn’t really have any chemistry with France at the moment”. It’s probably a way of asking the French government “to put its own house in order before criticising what others are doing [in Nagorno-Karabakh]”, he added.

Azerbaijan has also proved to be creative in increasing the resonance of these pro-independence demands on social media. On Twitter, they are relayed by anonymous Azerbaijanis and influential personalities, such as AIR Center director Farid Shafiyev.

Since October, the Azerbaijani parliament has even hosted a support group for the people of Corsica, the French Mediterranean island which has had a tumultuous relationship with mainland France since it became French in the 18^th century. A communiqué published in early February by the people of Corsica support group set up by Azerbaijan’s parliament denounced “the Macron Dictatorship”. ().

In December, Azerbaijan was accused of sending journalists “known for their proximity to Azerbaijani intelligence services” to cover French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s trip to New Caledonia, a French archipelago in the Pacific. Their mission was to write articles “with an anti-France angle”, said radio station Europe 1, which broke the story.

A leaf from the Russian playbook

The creation of the Baku Initiative Group and the media hype surrounding the issue of anti-colonialism are “a monumental mistake”, according to Dupuy. The former advisor to Azerbaijan asserted that this strategy has “no chance” of moving France one iota on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, while scuttling relations between the two countries. It’s an opinion he says he shares with his contacts in Azerbaijan.

But it’s not surprising that Baku is resorting to this kind of tactic, explained Goyushov of the Baku Research Institute. With its internet disinformation operations and anti-West rhetoric harking back to the colonial era, Azerbaijan is taking a leaf out of the Kremlin playbook for winning friends and gaining influence in Africa.

“You have to take into account one thing: Azerbaijan was a part of the Soviet Union,” said Goyushov. Aliyev’s father, Heydar Aliyev, who was Azerbaijan’s president for a decade before his son took over the office, was a former KGB official – like Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Of course they are still almost the same,” added the political scientist. “They are copying each other in many ways. Their rhetoric against the West uses the same methods against their opponents, employs the same tactics on social media.”

But Goyushov doesn’t expect the Azerbaijani offensive to succeed. Firstly, because Azerbaijan does not have the same resources as Russia to deploy large-scale operations, such as Russia’s Doppelgänger disinformation campaign, which has been spreading false information in several European countries since 2022.

Secondly, Azerbaijan “is much more economically dependent on Western countries than Russia”, noted Goyushov. Aliyev, he believes, does not have the luxury of getting permanently upset with a power like France.

“It’s quite similar to what happened in 2013 with Germany,” explained Goyushov. Back then, Germany criticised the infringements of religious freedom in Azerbaijan, a country with a Muslim majority. In the lead-up to a presidential election in Azerbaijan, “there were numerous attacks on Germany for about two years”, noted Goyushov.

But then the anti-German attacks abruptly stopped. The reason, according to Goyushov, is that these smear campaigns serve mainly internal political purposes. “In an authoritarian regime, you sometimes need to find a common enemy that allows the country to unite around the leader,” he explained. Perhaps COP 29, the 2024 climate conference to be held in Azerbaijan in November, will be an opportunity for the authorities to redress the diplomatic balance with the West, and France in particular.

Eloïse Layan from Forbidden Stories contributed to this report.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

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The history and latest developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia | Explained

Post By World Armenia, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia, Turkey Azerbaijan

The Armenian flag hangs from a lamp post as Azeri police patrol a road leading into the city of Stepanakert, retaken last week, during an Azeri government organized media trip, in Azerbaijan’s controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh, on October 2, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: On September 20, Azerbaijan claimed full control over the contentious Nagorno-Karabakh region after local forces, mostly Armenians, agreed to be disarmed and disbanded. Hundreds of local Armenians fled the area overnight, fearing ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan.

The disputed region, called Artsakh in Armenian, has been a major ethnic conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. While it is home to a majority population of ethnic Armenians and an Azeri minority, it is internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan.

What is the history of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh?

Nagorno-Karabakh is located within the international borders of Azerbaijan. It is in the South Caucasus region between eastern Europe and western Asia, spanning the southern part of the Caucasus mountains that roughly includes modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

The conflict between Azeris and Armenians goes back to almost a century, when the Ottomans attacked the South Caucasus during World War I with the help of the Azeris. They targeted ethnic Armenians during this attack, and the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia descended into a full-blown war in 1920. This war especially affected the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, as the region had been incorporated into the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.

Azerbaijan and Armenia became part of the Soviet Republic soon after, and Nagorno-Karabakh was made an autonomous Oblast (administrative region) in Azerbaijan’s territory, while its population was majorly Armenian. In the final days of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh’s majority Armenian-Christian population held a referendum to break away from the Shia-majority Azerbaijan.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent countries, and Armenian rebels declared Nagorno-Karabakh an independent territory (although not recognised internationally). By 1993, most of Nagorno-Karabakh was under Armenian control. The war between the two parties lasted till 1994 and killed around 30,000 people.

In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia entered a ceasefire brokered by Russia, but international borders for the countries were not demarcated. The Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, the U.S., and France, was created by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in early 1990 to arrive at a peaceful resolution for Nagorno-Karabakh. None of the three suggested peace proposals could last.

The Madrid Principles of 2007, modified in 2009, proposed giving control of seven Karabakh districts to Azerbaijan, self-governance to the region, a corridor link with Armenia, an opportunity to the region’s inhabitants to express their will, return of refugees, and setting up of a peacekeeping operation. They weren’t accepted, even after another modification in 2011.

A four-day war between Azerbaijan and Armenia broke out in 2016. The Minsk Group met again in 2017 in Geneva but failed to arrive at a resolution.

In 2020, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev launched an offensive to take Nagorno-Karabakh back, leading the country into a fierce war with Armenia that lasted six weeks and killed more than 2,000 people. The Azeri forces attacked Armenian defences and took back 40% of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan was backed by Turkey, and while Armenia’s ally Russia did little to support it, , it helped broker a ceasefire. Stepanakert, the region’s biggest city, remained within local control.

Despite the ceasefire, Azerbaijan did not give up attempts to capture Nagorno-Karabakh. In December 2022, it blockaded Lachin Corridor, the main road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the rest of the world, adding to the economic misery of the 1,20,000 people of the region. The road was blocked under the pretext of environmental concerns. “Prior to that blockade, around 90% of all consumed food was imported from Armenia. The people of Nagorno-Karabakh no longer receive 400 tonnes of essential goods daily,” Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan said in a U.N. press release published on August 16, 2023.

Nagorno-Karabakh region

Azerbaijan faced international criticism and promised to lift the blockade but added a checkpoint to contain the flow of goods. Russian peacekeepers deployed in the area were responsible for ensuring supplies to the region since 2020, but experts believe that the country’s war in Ukraine diverted its attention and resources from the area.

Latest developments

A fresh round of violence broke out in the area in September 2023 when Azerbaijan launched an attack against ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. The fighting lasted one day, and a ceasefire was announced a day later.

In a statement, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and expressed “deep concern for the ethnic Armenian population” in the disputed region.

Why was Azerbaijan able to accomplish the accession now?

Experts believe Turkey has a big role to play in the latest developments in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijanis/Azeris are a Turkic ethnic group of mixed heritage and speak a language belonging to a branch of the Turkic family. Reuters reported that Turkey, however, denied any direct involvement in Azerbaijan’s offensive, although it is a political and military supporter of Azerbaijan.

“Turkey’s cooperation with Azerbaijan in military training and army modernisation has been underway for a long time. The Azerbaijani army’s success in the latest operation clearly shows the level they achieved,” a Turkish defence ministry official was quoted as saying.

Russia’s absence in the Caucasus is owing to its war in Ukraine. As retaliation to Russia’s lack of help over the last few years, Armenia on Tuesday voted to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite Russia’s warnings. Russian President Vladimir Putin can be arrested for war crimes if he enters countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC. Armenian officials, however, argued that the move has nothing to do with Russia.

Over 100,000 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is almost the entire population of the disputed region, have fled to neighbouring Armenia in the last ten days, World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates. The exodus has triggered a massive humanitarian crisis.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Morning Digest | Army officer injured in ‘grenade accident’ at a post in J&K’s Rajouri; supply copy of FIR to NewsClick founder, court tells Delhi Police, and more

Post By World AAP, Adani group, American envoy visit Gilgit-Baltistan, Army Rajouri encounter, ASIAN GAMES, Azerbaijan, bjp, china russia, Congress, Elon Musk, ethnic cleansing, freedom of speech, India Canda relations, Inflation, Jammu & Kashmir, latest news today, mea, morning news, Nagorno-Karabakh, newsclick, newsclick case updates, NIA, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, rajouri grenade accident, Sanjay singh arrest, SEBI, sikkim flash floods, Syria drone attack, the hindu latest news, the hindu morning digest, the hindu news, top news today, Wagner

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Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan reaffirms control amid Armenian exodus

Post By World Armenia politics, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh

The last bus carrying ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh left the region Monday, completing a gruelling weeklong exodus of more than 100,000 people – more than 80 per cent of its residents – after Azerbaijan reclaimed the area in a lightning military operation.

The bus that entered Armenia carried 15 passengers with serious illnesses and mobility problems, said Gegham Stepanyan, a human rights ombudsman for the former breakaway region that Azerbaijan calls Karabakh. He called for information about any other residents who want to leave but have had trouble doing so.

In a 24-hour military campaign that began on 19 September, the Azerbaijani army routed the region’s undermanned and outgunned Armenian forces, forcing them to capitulate. The separatist government then agreed to disband itself by the end of this year, but Azerbaijani authorities are already in charge of the region.

Azerbaijan Interior Ministry spokesman Elshad Hajiyev told The Associated Press on Monday that the country’s police have established control over the entire region.

“Work is conducted to enforce law and order in the entire Karabakh region,” he said, adding that Azerbaijani police have moved to “protect the rights and ensure the security of the Armenian population in accordance with Azerbaijan’s law.”

While Baku has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians, most of them hastily fled the region, fearing reprisals or losing the freedom to use their language and practice their religion and customs.

The Armenian government said Monday that 100,514 of the region’s estimated 120,000 residents have crossed into Armenia.

Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan said some people had died during the exhausting and slow journey over the single mountain road into Armenia that took as long as 40 hours. The exodus followed a nine-month Azerbaijani blockade of the region that left many suffering from malnutrition and lack of medicines.

Armenia alleged the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, but Azerbaijan rejected the accusation, saying the Armenian government was using it for weapons shipments and argued the region could receive supplies through the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam – a solution long resisted by Nagorno-Karabakh authorities.

Sergey Astsetryan, 40, one of the last Nagorno-Karabakh residents to leave in his own vehicle Sunday, said some elderly people have decided to stay, adding that others might return if they see it’s safe for ethnic Armenians under Azerbaijani rule.

“My father told me that he will return when he has the opportunity,” Astsetryan told reporters at a checkpoint on the Armenian border.

Azerbaijani authorities moved quickly to reaffirm control of the region, arresting several former members of its separatist government and encouraging ethnic Azerbaijani residents who fled the area amid a separatist war three decades ago to start moving back.

The streets of the regional capital, which is called Khankendi by Azerbaijan and Stepanakert by the Armenians, appeared empty and littered with trash, with doors of deserted businesses flung open.

The sign with the city’s Azerbaijani name was placed at one entrance and Azerbaijani police checkpoints were set up on the city’s edges, with officers checking the trunks of cars.

Just outside the city, a herd of cows grazed in an abandoned private orchard, and a small dog, which appeared to have been left behind by its owners, stood silently looking at passing vehicles.

Russian peacekeeping troops could be seen on a balcony of one building in the city, and others were at their base outside it, where their vehicles were parked.

On Sunday, Azerbaijan prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for former Nagorno-Karabakh leader Arayik Harutyunyan, who led the region before stepping down at the beginning of September. Azerbaijani police arrested one of Harutyunyan’s former prime ministers, Ruben Vardanyan, on Wednesday as he tried to cross into Armenia.

“We put an end to the conflict,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a speech Monday. “We protected our dignity, we restored justice and international law.”

He added that “our agenda is peace in the Caucasus, peace in the region, cooperation, shared benefits, and today, we demonstrate that.”

After six years of separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia, turning about 1 million of its Azerbaijani residents into refugees. After a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of the region in the south Caucasus Mountains, along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had captured earlier.

Armenian authorities have accused the Russian peacekeepers, who were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after the 2020 war, of standing idle and failing to stop the Azerbaijani onslaught. The accusations were rejected by Moscow, which argued that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intervene.

The mutual accusations have further strained the relations between Armenia and its longtime ally Russia, which has accused the Armenian government of a pro-Western tilt.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan alleged Thursday that the exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh amounted to “a direct act of ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland.”

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry strongly rejected Pashinyan’s accusations, arguing their departure was “their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation.”

Speaking to the AP in Lachin, the Azerbaijani town that had been controlled by separatists for nearly three decades until Baku’s forces reclaimed it in 2020, Solmaz Abbasova, 67, said returning home was a dream that sustained her family since the earlier exodus.

“It was a boundless happiness to come back home after 31 years and see the things which were so dear — the land, the river, the forest and the lake,” Abbasova said, adding that her husband and son were with her but their daughter died before she could return.

She said the Armenians are leaving the region safely by their own choice, unlike her family and other Azerbaijani refugees, adding that many were killed as they tried to leave.

“I feel sorry for simple Armenians leaving Karabakh now, but there is a big difference: They and their children aren’t being hunted and killed as they killed our refugees,” she said. “They have a choice whether to stay or leave calmly.”

Azerbaijan’s presidential office said in a statement that the country has presented a plan for the “reintegration” of ethnic Armenians in the region, noting that “the equality of rights and freedoms, including security, is guaranteed to everyone regardless of their ethnic, religious or linguistic affiliation.”

It said that the plan envisages improving infrastructure to bring it line with the rest of the country and offers tax exemptions, subsidies, low-interest loans and other incentives. The statement noted that Azerbaijani authorities have held three rounds of talks with representatives of the region’s ethnic Armenian population and will continue the discussions.

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#NagornoKarabakh #Azerbaijan #reaffirms #control #Armenian #exodus

Nagorno-Karabakh: Half of population flees, separatist govt dissolves

Post By World Azerbaijan, Migrant Crisis, Nagorno-Karabakh, War

The separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh said Thursday it will dissolve itself and the unrecognised republic will cease to exist by year’s end after a three-decade bid for independence, while Armenian officials said more than half of the region’s population has already fled.

The moves came after Azerbaijan carried out a lightning offensive last week to reclaim full control over the breakaway region and demanded that Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh disarm and the separatist government disband.

A decree signed by the region’s separatist President Samvel Shakhramanyan cited a 20 September agreement to end the fighting under which Azerbaijan will allow the “free, voluntary and unhindered movement” of Nagorno-Karabakh residents to Armenia.

Some of those who fled the regional capital, known as Stepanakert to Armenians and Khankendi to Azerbaijan, said they had no hope for the future.

“I left Stepanakert having a slight hope that maybe something will change and I will come back soon, and these hopes are ruined after reading about the dissolution of our government,” 21-year-old student Ani Abaghyan told The Associated Press.

Lawyer Anush Shahramanyan, 30, lamented that “we can never go back to our homes without having an independent government in Artaskh,” referring to Nagorno-Karabakh by its Armenian name.

The mass exodus of ethnic Armenians from the mountainous region inside Azerbaijan began Sunday. By Thursday morning, 74,400 people – more than 60 per cent of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population of 120,000 – had fled to Armenia, and the influx continued unabated, according to Armenian officials.

In three decades of conflict between the two countries, each has accused the other of targeted attacks, massacres and other atrocities, leaving people on both sides deeply suspicious and fearful of the other.

While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in the region, they do not trust the authorities to treat them fairly and humanely or to grant them their language, religion and culture.

After six years of separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia. Then, during a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of the region in the South Caucasus Mountains along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed earlier.

Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory.

In December, Azerbaijan blockaded the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, alleging the Armenian government was using it for illicit weapons shipments to the region’s separatist forces.

Armenia alleged the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan rejected the accusation, arguing that the region could receive supplies through the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam – a solution long resisted by Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, who called it a strategy for Azerbaijan to gain control of the region.

Weakened by the blockade and with Armenia’s leadership distancing itself from the conflict, ethnic Armenian forces in the region agreed to lay down arms less than 24 hours after Azerbaijan began its offensive last week. Talks have begun between officials in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities on “reintegrating” the region into Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani authorities have pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in the region and restore supplies, but tens of thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents have fled to Armenia, fearing reprisals. The only road to Armenia quickly filled with cars, creating a massive traffic jam on the winding mountain road.

It took Abaghyan, the student, three days to get to Armenia from the regional captial, a distance of about 80 kilometres.

Shahramanyan spent 30 hours on the road and still had half the journey ahead of her on Thursday.

She said that for her and her family, living in Nagorno-Karabakh will be impossible under Azerbaijan rule because she believes their basic rights will be violated.

“No power in the world is willing to stop the atrocities of Azerbaijan. What can any Armenian hope for under the control of that genocidal state?” she said.

Azerbaijan’s military last week accused Nagorno-Karabakh residents of burning down their homes in Martakert, a town in the north of the region that until the last week’s offensive remained under the control of ethnic Armenian forces. Their claims could not be independently verified. But that is something that also happened in 2020 when people fled territories taken over by Azerbaijan.

On Monday night, a fuel reservoir exploded at a gas station where people lined up for gas to fill their cars to flee to Armenia. At least 68 people were killed and nearly 300 injured, with over 100 others still considered missing after the blast that exacerbated fuel shortages that were already dire after the blockade.

It’s unclear how many ethnic Armenians will remain in the region. Nagorno-Karabakh authorities previously predicted that most of the population will leave.

In Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that “in the coming days, there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“This is a direct act of an ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland, exactly what we’ve told the international community about,” he said.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry strongly rejected Pashinyan’s accusations, accusing him of “seeking to disrupt Azerbaijan’s efforts to provide humanitarian assistance and the reintegration process” and undermining prospects for negotiating a peace treaty between the two countries.

It urged the Armenian population of the region “not to leave their places of residence and become part of the multinational Azerbaijan.”

Azerbaijani authorities said they were sending 30 buses to Stepanakert/Khankendi at the request of “the Armenian residents” for those who don’t have cars but want to go to Armenia.

Armenia has set up two main centres in the cities of Goris and Vayk to register and assess the needs of those fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh. The government is offering accommodations to anyone who doesn’t have a place to stay, although only about 14,000 of the 70,500 people who have crossed into the country – under 20 per cent – applied for it.

“The accommodation suggested by the government is mostly in the border villages, where people face serious security issues due to the periodic shootings by Azerbaijan. Besides, finding a job is difficult,” said Tatevik Khachatrian, who arrived Thursday. She said she and her family would stay with relatives in Yerevan before trying to rent an apartment.

On Thursday, Azerbaijani authorities charged Ruben Vardanyan, the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government, with financing terrorism, creating illegal armed formations and illegally crossing a state border. A day earlier, he was detained by Azerbaijani border guards as he was trying to leave Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia along with tens of thousands of others.

Vardanyan, a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, was placed in pretrial detention for at least four months and faces up to 14 years in prison. His arrest appeared to indicate Azerbaijan’s intent to quickly enforce its grip on the region.

“My failure to appear, or worse, my escape, will cause serious harm to our long-suffering people, to many people, and I, as an honest person, hard worker, patriot and a Christian, cannot allow this,” Babayan said.

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Half of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population flees as the separatist government says it will dissolve

Post By World Armenia Azerbaijan conflict, ethnic armenians in karabakh, nagorno karabakh population flees, Nagorno-Karabakh

The separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh said Thursday it will dissolve itself and the unrecognized republic will cease to exist by year’s end after a three-decade bid for independence, while Armenian officials said over half of the region’s population has already fled.

The moves came after Azerbaijan carried out a lightning offensive last week to reclaim full control over the region and demanded that Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh disarm and the separatist government dissolve itself.

A decree signed by the region’s separatist President Samvel Shakhramanyan cited an agreement reached Sept. 20 to end the fighting under which Azerbaijan will allow the “free, voluntary and unhindered movement” of Nagorno-Karabakh residents to Armenia.

Some of those who fled the regional capital of Stepanakert said they had no hope for the future.

“I left Stepanakert having a slight hope that maybe something will change and I will come back soon, and these hopes are ruined after reading about the dissolution of our government,” said Ani Abaghyan, a 21-year-old student, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Lawyer Anush Shahramanyan, 30, added: “We can never go back to our homes without having an independent government in Artaskh,” referring to Nagorno-Karabakh by its Armenian name.

The mass exodus of ethnic Armenians from the mountainous region inside Azerbaijan began on Sunday. By Thursday morning, over 70,000 people — more than half of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population of 120,000 — had fled to Armenia, and the influx continued with unabating intensity, according to Armenian officials.

After separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenia. Then, during a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of the region in the south Caucasus Mountains along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed earlier.

Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory.

In December, Azerbaijan imposed blockaded the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, alleging the Armenian government was using it illicit weapons shipments to the region’s separatist forces.

Armenia alleged the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan rejected the accusation, arguing the region could receive supplies through the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam — a solution long resisted by Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, who called it a strategy for Azerbaijan to gain control of the region.

Weakened by the blockade, with Armenia’s leadership distancing itself from the conflict, ethnic Armenian forces in the region agreed to lay down arms less than 24 hours after Azerbaijan began its offensive last week. Talks have begun between Baku and Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities on “reintegrating” the region back into Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani authorities have pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in the region and restore supplies.

Many residents, however, have decided to leave for Armenia, fearing reprisals. The only road link to Armenia quickly filled with cars, creating a massive traffic jam on the winding mountain road.

It took Abaghyan, the student, three days to get to Armenia from Stepanakert, a distance of about 50 miles (80 kilometers).

Shahramanyan spent 30 hours on the road and still had half the journey ahead of her Thursday.

She said that for her and her family, living in Nagorno-Karabakh will be impossible under Azerbaijan rule because she believes their basic rights will be violated.

“No power in the world is willing to stop the atrocities of Azerbaijan. What can any Armenian hope for under the control of that genocidal state?” she said.(backslash)

On Monday night, a fuel reservoir exploded at a gas station where people lined up for gas that was in short supply from the blockade. At least 68 people were killed and nearly 300 injured, with over 100 others still considered missing.

It isn’t immediately clear if the ethnic Armenians still living in the region will remain there. Shakhramanyan’s decree urged Nagorno-Karabakh’s population — including those who left — “to familiarize themselves with the conditions of reintegration offered by the Republic of Azerbaijan, in order to then make an individual decision about the possibility of staying in (or returning to) Nagorno-Karabakh.”

EDITORIAL | War in Caucasus: On Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabah

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday also urged the Armenian population of the region “not to leave their places of residence and become part of the multinational Azerbaijan.”

Azerbaijani authorities said they are sending 30 buses to Stepanakert at the request of “the Armenian residents” for those who don’t have cars but want to go to Armenia.

In Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that “in the coming days, there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“This is a direct act of an ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland, exactly what we’ve telling the international community about,” he said.

In a statement, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said it “strongly” rejected Pashinyan’s accusations.

“Pashinyan knows well enough that the current departure of Armenians from Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region is their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation,” the ministry said. “With this alarming narrative, the Armenian prime minister is seeking to disrupt Azerbaijan’s efforts to provide humanitarian assistance and the reintegration process, and also undermines possible prospects for peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”

Armenia has set up two main centers in the cities of Goris and Vayk to register and assess the needs of those fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh. The government is offering accommodations to anyone who doesn’t have a place to stay, although only 13,922 of the 70,500 people who have crossed into the country — under 20% — applied for it.

“The accommodation suggested by the government is mostly in the border villages, where people face serious security issues due to the periodic shootings by Azerbaijan. Besides, finding a job is difficult,” said Tatevik Khachatrian, who arrived Thursday. She said she and her family will stay with relatives in Yerevan before trying to rent an apartment.

On Thursday, Azerbaijani authorities charged Ruben Vardanyan, the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government, with financing terrorism, creating illegal armed formations and illegally crossing a state border. Vardanyan, a billionaire banker, who was arrested on Wednesday, faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted, according to Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti. He was placed in pre-trial detention for at least four months, according to Azerbaijani media.

Azerbaijani officials said Vardanyan, who made his fortune in Russia, was detained as he was trying to enter Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh along with thousands of others and taken to Baku. The arrest appeared to indicate Azerbaijan’s intent to quickly enforce its grip on the region.

Vardanyan moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and headed the regional government for several months before stepping down earlier this year.

Another top separatist figure, Nagorno-Karabakh’s former foreign minister and now presidential adviser David Babayan, said Thursday he will surrender to Azerbaijani authorities after they “demanded my arrival in Baku for a proper investigation.” Babayan said in a Facebook post that he will head from Stepanakert, the region’s capital, to the nearby city of Shusha, which has been under Azerbaijani control since 2020.

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Aid shipments and evacuations as Azerbaijan reasserts control over breakaway province

Post By World Armenia, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Armenia relations, Nagorno-Karabakh

More badly needed humanitarian aid was on its way to the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh via both Azerbaijan and Armenia on Saturday. The development comes days after Baku reclaimed control of the province and began talks with representatives of its ethnic Armenian population on reintegrating the area, prompting some residents to flee their homes for fear of reprisals.

The aid shipments and evacuations followed Azerbaijan’s months-long road blockade of the region led to food and fuel shortages. Baku followed with a lightning military offensive this week.

Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Armenian forces also took control of substantial territory around the Azerbaijani region.

Azerbaijan regained control of the surrounding territory in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020. A Russia-brokered armistice ended the war, and a contingent of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers was sent to the region to monitor it.

On Tuesday, Azerbaijan launched heavy artillery fire against ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. A cease-fire was announced a day later, toning down fears of a third full-scale war over the region.

Under the agreement mediated by Russian peacekeeping forces, Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities made sizable concessions: disbanding the region’s defense forces and withdrawing Armenia’s military contingent. But the question of Nagorno-Karabakh’s final status remains open, and at the center of talks between the sides that began Thursday in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh.

Russia’s RIA Novosti on Saturday published photos of tanks, air defense systems, and other weapons reportedly surrendered by the province’s separatist forces to the Azerbaijani army.

Hundreds of ethnic Armenians evacuated by Russian peacekeepers from Nagorno-Karabakh in the wake of the Azerbaijani offensive — which Baku termed an “anti-terrorist operation” — were filmed Saturday camping outside an airport near the Russian peacekeepers’ base.

Elena Yeremyan, from the village of Askeran, told Nagorno-Karabakh-based broadcaster Artsakh TV that she and her family “had no intention of leaving” the area, as they “didn’t feel safe anywhere” after Azerbaijani troops moved into the region.

Valeri Hayrapetyan from Haterk said that he and his neighbors scrambled to leave after Azerbaijani forces entered the village earlier that day.

“People left as they could. Someone even left without any clothes. They couldn’t take anything. There are people who haven’t eaten anything. Someone lost consciousness yesterday because of starvation,” he said.

A third evacuee, also from Haterk, claimed that Azerbaijani troops were not allowing young men to leave. Romela Avanesyan also referenced rumors that they might be imprisoned, but did not provide specifics.

The evacuees’ claims could not be independently verified.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan called Saturday for the United Nations to send representatives of various agencies to Nagorno-Karabakh immediately to monitor and assess the human rights, humanitarian and security situation there. A message seeking comment on his request, made at the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders, was sent to a U.N. spokesperson.

Mirzoyan complained that the international community had left the region’s residents in peril and deprivation since the road blockade began in December. It was no coincidence, he said, that Azerbaijan went on to make its military move in the midst of the U.N.’s biggest gathering of the year.

“The message is clear: ‘You can talk about peace, and we can go to war, and you will not be able to change anything,’” he said hours after Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov stood at the same rostrum.

Azerbaijan also feels that the international community has fallen short — by not making “real steps and targeted public messages to persuade Armenia to honor its commitments,” Bayramov said.

He said Baku that was working “to address the immediate needs” of people in Nagorno-Karabakh and intends to “reintegrate” them as “equal citizens.” Azerbaijan has said it will guarantee Nagorno-Karabakh residents “all rights and freedoms” in line with the country’s constitution and international human rights obligations, including safeguards for ethnic minorities.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement Saturday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and expressed “deep concern for the ethnic Armenian population” in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Blinken underscored that the U.S. “is calling on Azerbaijan to protect civilians and uphold its obligations to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and to ensure its forces comply with international humanitarian law,” Miller said.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s office said Saturday that Baku had set up a “working group” to provide Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents with medical care, food and other staples.

Azerbaijani authorities reported Saturday that they shipped over 60 tons of fuel that same day through the South Caucasus country’s territory, through a road leading from the city of Aghdam with Nagorno-Karabakh’s regional capital, Stepanakert.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also said Saturday that it had dispatched 70 tons of humanitarian aid, mostly flour, to Nagorno-Karabakh via the road connection known as the Lachin corridor. Russian peacekeepers were supposed to ensure free movement along the route, but Baku imposed a blockade in December, alleging that Yerevan was using the road for mineral extraction and illicit weapons shipments to the province’s separatist forces.

Armenia charged that the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh’s approximately 120,000 people. Azerbaijan rejected the accusation, arguing that the region could receive supplies through Aghdam — a solution long resisted by Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, who called it a strategy for Baku to take control of the region.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said earlier this week that it has enabled aid deliveries along the Lachin corridor.

Moscow has also sent over 50 tons of food aid and other “basic necessities” to Nagorno-Karabakh, the state-run RIA Novosti agency reported on Saturday. The Russian Defense Ministry that same day published a video showing Russian peacekeepers unloading the cargo.

Aliyev said through his press office that “better opportunities” had emerged to seek a peace agreement with Armenia after 30 years of conflict, largely centered on Nagorno-Karabakh’s status.

His foreign minister told the General Assembly that the path forward is for Yerevan to take “tangible steps” to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty in the province.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the gathering that it was time “for mutual trust-building” between the adversaries, and that Russian troops “will certainly help.”

Meanwhile, protesters rallied again Saturday in Armenia’s major cities, demanding that authorities defend ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and calling for Pashinyan to resign. Armenia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened 49 criminal cases against demonstrators accused of calling for mass disorder, vandalism and carrying unlicensed weapons.

The Armenian police also told Russia’s Interfax agency on Friday that it had arrested 98 protesters at a rally in Yerevan.

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Azerbaijan claims full control of breakaway region; holds initial talks with ethnic Armenians

Post By World Ararat Mirzoyan, Armenia Azerbaijan clash, Armenia Azerbaijan conflict, Armenia Azerbaijan issue, Armenia Azerbaijan problem, Armenia Azerbaijan row, Armenian Foreign Minister, Armenian Prime Minister, Azerbaijan Foreign Minister, Azerbaijan President, Bayramov, Dmitry Polyansky, Ilham Aliyev, International Committee of the Red Cross, Jeyhun Bayramov, Mirzoyan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nikol Pashinyan, putin, Russia Deputy UN ambassador, Russian President, un general assembly, UN peacekeeping force, UN Security Council, UNGA, United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Security Council, UNSC, Vladimir Putin

Azerbaijan regained control of its breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a deadly two-day military offensive and held initial talks with representatives of its ethnic Armenian population on reintegrating the area into the mainly Muslim country, Azerbaijan’s top diplomat told the UN Security Council on September 21.

Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov reaffirmed Azerbaijan’s determination to guarantee Nagorno-Karabakh residents “all rights and freedoms” in line with the country’s constitution and international human rights obligations, including safeguards for ethnic minorities. He said the talks with Nagorno-Karabakh in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh will continue.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev declared victory in a televised address. Mr. Bayramov said there is now “a historic opportunity” to seek better relations with Armenia after 30 years of conflict.

Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Armenian forces also took control of substantial territory around the Azerbaijani region.

The agreement left the region’s capital, Stepanakert, connected to Armenia only by the Lachin Corridor, along which Russian peacekeepers were supposed to ensure free movement. But a blockade by Azerbaijan deprived Nagorno-Karabakh of basic supplies for the last 10 months, until Monday, when the International Committee of the Red Cross was able to make a delivery through another route.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, who called for the emergency meeting of the Security Council along with France, accused Azerbaijan of an “unprovoked and well-planned military attack,” launched to coincide with this week’s annual meeting of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.

“Literally the whole territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,” including Stepanakert and other cities and settlements, came under attack from intense and indiscriminate shelling, missiles, heavy artillery, banned cluster munitions, combat drones and other aircraft,” he said.

Mr. Mirzoyan said the offensive targeted critical infrastructure such as electricity stations, telephone cables and internet equipment, killed more than 200 people and wounded 400 others, including women and children. “More than 10,000 people fled their homes to escape the offensive,” he said.

“Electricity and phone services were knocked out, leaving people unable to contact each other, and “Azerbaijani troops control main roads in Nagorno-Karabakh, which makes it impossible to visit and get information on the ground,” he said.

“The Azerbaijani social media is full of calls to find the missing children and women, to rape them, dismember them and feed them to dogs,” Mr. Mirzoyan told the council.

He said the “barbarity” of Azerbaijan’s aggression and deliberate targeting of the civilian population “was the final act of this tragedy aimed at the forced exodus of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.” What Armenia has seen, Mr. Mirzoyan said, “is not an intent anymore but clear and irrefutable evidence of a policy of ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities.” Mr. Bayramov strongly denied the allegations of ethnic cleansing. He said representatives from Nagorno-Karabakh asked during Thursday’s talks for humanitarian aid, including food and fuel for schools, hospitals and other facilities that government agencies will provide soon.

Russia’s Deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, told the council: “We need to develop a gradual roadmap to integrate the population of Nagorno-Karabakh into the constitutional order of Azerbaijan, with clear guarantees over their rights and security,” “Russia’s peacekeepers will support these efforts,” he said, adding that “the security and rights of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians are of key importance.” The quick capitulation by Nagorno-Karabakh separatists reflected their weakness from the blockade.

“The local forces, they were never strong. The Azerbaijani Army is much better prepared, much better equipped. … So it was quite obvious, you know, that any military action that was to take place in that area, it would lead to the defeat of the local Armenian side,” Olesya Vartanyan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press.

Mr. Bayramov said Armenia kept more than 10,000 “armed formations” and heavy military equipment in Nagorno-Karabakh after the 2020 agreement. “During the operation that started on Tuesday, more than 90 of their outposts were taken, along with substantial military equipment,” he said. He held up photos of equipment he claimed was seized.

Mr. Mirzoyan urged the Security Council to demand protection for civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh; to immediately deploy a UN mission to monitor the human rights, humanitarian and security situation; to seek return of prisoners of war; and to consider deploying a UN peacekeeping force to the region.

Azerbaijan’s move to reclaim control over Nagorno-Karabakh raised concerns that a full-scale war in the region could resume. The 2020 war killed over 6,700 people.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” about Azerbaijan’s military actions and was closely watching the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In a phone call on Thursday with Mr. Aliyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin also urged that the rights and security of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should be guaranteed, according to the Tass news agency.

“Mr. Aliyev apologised to Mr. Putin during the call for the deaths of Russian peacekeepers in the region on Wednesday,” the Kremlin said. Azerbaijan’s prosecutor-general’s office later said five Russian peacekeepers were shot and killed on Wednesday by Azerbaijani troops who mistook them amid fog and rain for Armenian forces. One other Russian was killed by Armenian fighters.

Meanwhile, protesters rallied in the Armenian capital of Yerevan for a third day on Thursday, demanding that authorities defend Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and calling for the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. “At least 46 people were arrested in a large protest outside the main government building in the city centre,” police said.

The conflict has long drawn powerful regional players, including Russia and Turkiye. While Russia took on a mediating role, Turkiye threw its weight behind long-time ally Azerbaijan.

Russia has been Armenia’s main economic partner and ally since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and has a military base in the country.

Mr. Pashinyan, however, has been increasingly critical of Moscow’s role, emphasising its failure to protect Nagorno-Karabakh and arguing that Armenia needs to turn to the West to ensure its security. Moscow, in turn, has expressed dismay about Mr. Pashinyan’s pro-Western tilt.

While many in Armenia blamed Russia for the defeat of the separatists, Moscow pointed to Mr. Pashinyan’s own recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

“Undoubtedly, Karabakh is Azerbaijan’s internal business,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Azerbaijan is acting on its own territory, which was recognised by the leadership of Armenia.” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna condemned Azerbaijan’s offensive and said it is essential that the ceasefire announced on Wednesday is respected.

What is at stake, Ms. Colonna said, is whether the ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh can continue living there with their rights and culture respected by Azerbaijan. “Today, they have the responsibility for the fate of the population,” she said.

If Azerbaijan wants a peaceful and negotiated solution, Ms. Colonna said, “it must here and now provide tangible guarantees” and commit to discussions and to not using or threatening the use of force.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also condemned Azerbaijan’s military assault, which she said was launched despite the government’s assurances to refrain from the use of force.

She called for a complete cessation of violence and lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan that “can only be achieved at the negotiating table.” Ms. Baerbock urged both countries to return to European Union-mediated talks.

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Checkmate in Nagorno-Karabakh? How Azerbaijan got Armenia to back down

Post By World Armenia, Asia / Pacific, Azerbaijan, ethnic conflict, Features, Nagorno-Karabakh, politics, War

The Armenian separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh on Wednesday agreed to lay down their weapons following Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive in the Armenian-majority enclave. Between Moscow’s weakening position in the Caucasus and the West’s dependence on hydrocarbons, Azerbaijan has taken advantage of a favourable international context to complete a decades-long mission to control the disputed region.

After more than 30 years of conflict, the battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh may soon conclude. Under the guise of an “anti-terrorist operation” following the death of four soldiers and two civilians, Baku continued its efforts to reassert control over Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday.

Armenian separatists – who have mostly governed the disputed territory since 1994 – promptly agreed on Wednesday to surrender their weapons following Baku’s lightning offensive, indicating they are open to talks on reintegrating the secessionist territory into Azerbaijan.

“An agreement has been reached on the withdrawal of the remaining units and servicemen of the Armenian armed forces … and on the dissolution and complete disarmament of the armed formations of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army,” the Armenian separatist authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement.

This announcement is a decisive victory for Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev who has made the reunification of his country a priority.

Separated from Armenia and attached to Azerbaijan in 1921 by Stalin, the predominantly Armenian mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has been a point of permanent tension between the two former Soviet republics since the collapse of the USSR.

In 1991, the territory declared itself the independent Republic of Artsakh but was never recognised by the international community. Then, in 1994, Armenia won the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, resulting in the de facto independence of the Republic of Artsakh which Azerbaijan refused to accept.

In the intervening years, the tables have turned, says Jean Radvanyi, geographer and professor emeritus at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). Thanks to significant revenues from oil and natural gas, “Baku has taken advantage of the situation to rearm, with the support of allies such as Turkey, and the balance of power has continued to evolve”, says Radvanyi.

This role reversal gave Azerbaijan the confidence to launch the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, which saw Baku’s forces overpower the Armenian military.

In the wake of this defeat, Armenia was forced to cede territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. The ceasefire stipulated the presence of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers tasked with guaranteeing the safety of the Armenians but this measure failed to stop regular armed skirmishes on the border.

Taking advantage of a divided Armenia, Azerbaijan then launched the second phase of its plan: a war of attrition designed to cut off the enclave’s 120,000 or so Armenians. Despite the presence of the Russian peacekeepers, beginning in December 2022, Azerbaijan blockaded the Lachin corridor, a narrow mountain road that links Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

It wasn’t until September 18 – just one day before the offensive – that Red Cross trucks carrying food and medicine gained access to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkish support and Moscow’s declining influence in the Caucasus

In both the first and second Nagorno-Karabakh wars, Azerbaijan received support from Turkey.

On Tuesday, a Turkish defence ministry official said the country is using “all means”, including military training and modernisation, to support its close ally Azerbaijan but it did not play a direct role in Baku’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Baku’s success also appears to be the result of Moscow’s weakening regional position. Russia has struggled to maintain its traditional role as policeman of the Caucasus since it launched its offensive in Ukraine in February 2022.

“Since the fall of the USSR, Russia has been the guardian of the region, maintaining a kind of status quo, but Moscow is focused on the conflict in Ukraine, which seems far from over,” says Lukas Aubin, associate researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS).

What’s more, Russia has become much more dependent on Azerbaijan. The country serves as a corridor between Iran and Russia, allowing for the transfer of military supplies for the war in Ukraine and is one of the countries that enables Russia to circumvent Western sanctions

Finally, Moscow’s support for Armenia has been steadily waning in recent years. Elected in 2018, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has edged away from Russia and turned to the West for security guarantees.

For instance, in November 2022, Pashinyan refused to sign the final declaration of the summit of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which Azerbaijan is also a member. This signalled Armenia’s growing resentment at Moscow’s lack of support for the country.

“Pashinyan is pursuing a pro-Western policy, which was not necessarily the case at the outset, and which irritates Moscow,” says Laurent Leylekian, a South Caucasus specialist and political analyst. “Armenia ratified the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court to protect the Armenian minority in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

This process began at the end of 2022, but ended, coincidentally, a few days after the announcement of the ICC’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin – at a time when Putin wanted to sully the ICC’s credibility, Armenia was legitimising it.

Since then, Pashinyan has multiplied acts of defiance towards the Russian president. In early September, Armenia announced humanitarian aid to Ukraine and undertook a joint military exercise with the United States, which began on September 11. In response, Moscow responded by summoning the Armenian ambassador and denouncing the measures as “unfriendly”.

‘It’s death or exile that awaits the Armenians’

A Western response is yet to materialise. But here again, the international context is working in Azerbaijan’s favour.

In January, the European Union signed a far-reaching natural gas import agreement with Baku, to reduce dependence on Russian supplies. A few months later, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, travelled to Baku to announce a new agreement to double gas imports from Azerbaijan.

In an article published in Le Monde, some fifty French lawmakers criticised a project that would once again place Europeans “in a situation of new dependence on a state with bellicose aspirations”.

“The West has always been rather hypocritical in this matter, preferring to negotiate gas and oil with Baku rather than genuinely support the Armenians”, says Radvanyi.

As Azerbaijan now enters negotiations with Armenian separatists from a position of considerable strength, the power asymmetry could spell danger for both the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia itself.

“The (ethnic) Armenian leaders of secessionist Karabakh have long refused to acknowledge that this territory belongs to Azerbaijan,” says Radvanyi, for whom the power shift on the ground could lead to a “solution” to the long-lasting standoff over Nagorno-Karabakh.

“I hope this solution will ensure the status of the Karabakh Armenians,” he adds.

But other experts envisage much gloomier scenarios. “It’s death or exile that awaits the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh because it’s impossible for an Armenian to live in a country where racist anti-Armenian hatred is the raison d’être,” says Leylekian.

Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, an Armenian ambassador warned of “looming ethnic cleansing” in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh are trapped and they do not have a way to evacuate since Azerbaijan continues to block the only lifeline connecting with Armenia,” he said.

Another concern relates to the integrity of Armenian territory, as Nagorno-Karabakh could lose its role as a buffer zone between the two enemies of the Caucasus.

“There’s every reason to be worried. If this buffer zone were to disappear, Azerbaijan’s ambitions could be even more pronounced,” says Aubin. “Without Russian support and frank and massive support from the West, it’s hard to see the Armenian army being in a position to resist.”

In contrast with this, Azerbaijan’s presidential foreign policy advisor Hikmet Hajiyev said Wednesday that the country aimed to “peacefully reintegrate” Armenians living in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh and that it supports a “normalisation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan”.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

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Azerbaijan claims full control over the Nagorno-Karabakh region as Armenian forces agree to disarm

Post By World Armenia, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh

September 20, 2023 05:16 pm | Updated September 21, 2023 05:31 am IST – YEREVAN, Armenia

Azerbaijan claimed full control of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region Wednesday after local Armenian forces there agreed to lay down their weapons following the latest outbreak of fighting in the decades-long separatist conflict.

Authorities in the ethnic Armenian region that has run its affairs without international recognition since fighting broke out in the early 1990s declared around midday that local self-defense forces will disarm and disband under a Russia-mediated cease-fire.

They also said representatives of the region will start talks Thursday with the Baku government on Nagorno-Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev trumpeted victory in a televised address to the nation, saying that “in just one day, Azerbaijan fulfilled all the tasks set as part of local anti-terrorist measures” and “restored its sovereignty.”

On Tuesday, the Azerbaijan army unleashed an artillery barrage and drone attacks against outnumbered and undersupplied pro-Armenian forces, which have been weakened by a blockade of the region in the southern Caucasus Mountains that is recognized internationally as being part of Azerbaijan.

Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan said at least 200 people, including 10 civilians, were killed and more than 400 others were wounded in the fighting. He said earlier that children were among the dead and wounded.

His casualty figures could not immediately be independently verified.

The hostilities worsened an already grim humanitarian situation for residents who have endured food and medicine shortages for months as Azerbaijan enforced a blockade of the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

Thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh residents flocked to a camp operated by Russian peacekeepers to avoid the fighting, while many others gathered at the airport of the regional capital, Stepanakert, hoping to flee the region.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a speech to the nation that fighting decreased following the truce, emphasizing that Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh are fully responsible for its residents security.

“If peacekeepers have proposed a peace deal, it means that they completely and without any reservations accepted the responsibility of ensuring the security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, and provide the conditions and the rights for them to live on their land and in their homes safely,” he said.

Mr. Pashinyan, who has previously recognized Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh, said Armenia wouldn’t be drawn into the fighting. He said his government didn’t take part in negotiating the deal, but “has taken note” of the decision made by the region’s separatist authorities.

He again denied any Armenian troops were in the region, even though separatist authorities said they were in Nagorno-Karabakh and would pull out as part of the truce.

Protesters rallied in the Armenian capital of Yerevan for a second straight day Wednesday, blocking streets and demanding that authorities defend Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The U.S. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” about Azerbaijan’s military actions. “We have repeatedly emphasized the use of force is absolutely unacceptable,” he said, adding that the U.S. was closely watching the worsening humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s move to reclaim control over Nagorno-Karabakh raised concerns that a full-scale war in the region could resume between the two neighbors, which have been locked in a struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

During another war that lasted for six weeks in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories that were held for decades by Armenian forces. More than 6,700 people died in the fighting, which ended with a Russian-brokered peace agreement. Moscow deployed about 2,000 peacekeeping troops to the region.

The conflict has long drawn in powerful regional players, including Russia and Turkey. While Russia took on the mediating role, Turkey threw its weight behind longtime ally Azerbaijan.

Russia has been Armenia’s main economic partner and ally since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and has a military base in the country.

Mr. Pashinyan, however, has been increasingly critical of Moscow’s role, emphasizing its failure to protect Nagorno-Karabakh and arguing that Armenia needs to turn to the West to ensure its security. Moscow, in turn, has expressed dismay about Mr. Pashinyan’s pro-Western tilt.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Pashinyan on Wednesday, welcoming the deal to end the hostilities and start talks between Azerbaijani officials and representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said some of its peacekeepers were killed Wednesday, although it didn’t say how many and whether it happened before or after the start of the cease-fire. The ministry said the peacekeeping contingent had evacuated more than 3,100 civilians.

The separatists’ quick capitulation reflected their weakness following the Armenian forces’ defeat in the 2020 war and the loss of the only road linking the region to Armenia.

Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank, said the separatist forces, which consisted of several thousand poorly supplied men, were “probably not a match for the Azerbaijani forces.”

While many in Armenia blamed Russia for the defeat of the separatists, Moscow pointed to Pashinyan’s own recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

“Undoubtedly, Karabakh is Azerbaijan’s internal business,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Azerbaijan is acting on its own territory, which was recognized by the leadership of Armenia.”

He voiced hope that Azerbaijan would respect the rights of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population.

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Aliyev and “condemned Azerbaijan’s decision to use force … at the risk of worsening the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh and compromising ongoing efforts to achieve a fair and lasting peace,” the French presidential office said.

Mr. Macron “stressed the need to respect” the cease-fire and “to provide guarantees on the rights and security of the people of Karabakh, in line with international law.”

Azerbaijan’s presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said Baku is “ready to listen to the Armenian population of Karabakh regarding their humanitarian needs.”

In announcing its military operation Tuesday, Azerbaijan aired a long list of grievances, accusing pro-Armenian forces of attacking its positions, planting land mines and engaging in sabotage.

Even though Aliyev insisted the Azerbaijani army struck only military facilities during the fighting, separatist officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said Stepanakert and other areas came under “intense shelling.”

Before the cease-fire, explosions reverberated around Stepanakert every few minutes on Wednesday — some in the distance and others closer to the city. Even after the truce was announced and the shelling could no longer be heard in Stepanakert, many residents decided to stay in shelters for the rest of the day.

Significant damage was visible in the city, with shop windows blown out and vehicles punctured, apparently by shrapnel.

The Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office said Armenian forces fired at Shusha, a city in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijan’s control, killing one civilian.

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