Ethnic Armenian Breakaway Government In Nagorno-Karabakh Surrenders
The breakaway government of an ethnic Armenian region in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region announced that it had accepted a ceasefire deal, a day after Baku launched an offensive into the region.
The self-declared Republic of Artsakh stated that the ceasefire would enter effect at 1pm local time. Under the terms of the ceasefire, which were relayed from the Azerbaijani government via Russian peacekeepers, the internationally unrecognized government is to disband its military forces and remove military hardware from the region, with Armenian military units in Nagorno-Karabakh to be withdrawn to Armenia as well.
Talks between Baku and ethnic Armenian leaders on the reintegration of the region’s Armenian population into Azerbaijan are scheduled to begin on Thursday in the city of Yevlakh.
In a statement, Artsakh authorities said that they had to accept the ceasefire due to international inaction while it suffered mounting casualties and losses of strategic locations to Azerbaijani forces. The region’s Artsakh Defence Army was ill-equipped counter Azerbaijani operations without support.
Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman Geghan Stepanyan said earlier on Wednesday that 32 people, including seven civilians, were killed and more than 200 others were wounded as the Azerbaijani attack continued into a second day.
In a livestreamed speech following the ceasefire announcement, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan denied involvement with the ceasefire negotiations, or that Armenian military units were in Nagorno-Karabakh. He claimed the references to the nonexistent military forces was proof that Baku’s offensive sought to draw Yerevan into open conflict, and that the “deep target would be Armenia’s independence and sovereignty”.
Pashinyan added that the most important matter going forward would be assurances from Russia that the ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh would be able to continue living in the region.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that Russian peacekeepers present in the region since the Moscow-brokered end of the 2020 war had not carried out their obligations as the fighting took place inside Azerbaijani territory, saying that they had been working “night and day” to evacuate ethnic Armenian citizens away from the fighting.