Thousands of Armenians flee Azerbaijan
Ethnic Armenians were streaming out of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday after the Azerbaijani military reclaimed full control of the breakaway region, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Azerbaijan in a show of support to its ally.
The Azerbaijani military routed Armenian forces in a 24-hour blitz last week, forcing the separatist authorities to agree to lay down weapons and start talks on NagornoKarabakh's “reintegration” into Azerbaijan after three decades of separatist rule.
A second round of talks between Azerbaijani officials and separatist representatives took place in the town of Khojaly, just north of the NagornoKarabakh capital, on Monday. Talks also were held last week. Azerbaijan's presidential office said in a statement that the talks were held “in a constructive atmosphere” and that discussion focused on humanitarian aid to the region and medical services.
Meanwhile, a powerful blast rocked the mountainous region Monday evening at fuel storage facility near the regional capital of Stepanakert. The explosion wounded more than 200 people, NagornoKarabakh human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan said on X, formerly known as Twitter. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast or whether there were any deaths.
While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in the region and restore supplies after a 10-month blockade, many local residents feared reprisals and said they were planning to leave for Armenia.
The Armenian government said that 6,500 Nagorno-Karabakh residents had fled to Armenia as of Monday evening, 1650 of
them on Monday afternoon.
“It was a nightmare. There are no words to describe. The village was heavily shelled. Almost no one is left in the village,” said one of the evacuees who spoke to The Associated Press in the Armenian city of Kornidzor and refused to give her name for security reasons.
Moscow said that Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh were assisting the evacuation.
Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said Monday that two of its soldiers were killed a day earlier when a military truck hit a land mine. It didn't name the area where the explosion occurred.
In an address to the nation Sunday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his government was working with international partners to protect the rights and security of Armenians in NagornoKarabakh.
“If these efforts do not produce concrete results, the government will welcome our sisters and brothers from Nagorno-Karabakh in the Republic of Armenia with every care,” he said.
Demonstrators demanding Pashinyan's resignation over what they call his failure to protect Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh continued blocking the Armenian capital's main avenues Monday, clashing occasionally with police.
Russian peacekeepers have been in the region since 2020, when a Russian-brokered armistice ended a six-week war between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinyan and many others in Armenia accused the peacekeepers of failing to prevent the hostilities and protect the Armenian population. Moscow rejected the accusations, arguing that its forces had no legal grounds to intervene, particularly after Pashinyan's recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.
“We are categorically against attempts to put the blame on the Russian side, especially the Russian peacekeepers, who have shown a true heroism,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.
He demurred when asked whether the Russian
peacekeepers would remain in the region, saying that “no one can really say anything for now.”
Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. During the war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of NagornoKarabakh along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed during the earlier conflict.
In December, Azerbaijan imposed a blockade of the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, alleging that the Armenian government was using the road for mineral extraction and illicit weapons shipments to the region'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 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.