Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia sign deal to end military conflict
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he has signed a deal with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Russia to end the military conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday morning, after more than a month of bloodshed.
This was followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin (photo, above) saying in a statement on Tuesday that Russian peacekeepers will be deployed along the front line in Nagorno-Karabakh following the agreement...Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he has signed a deal with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Russia to end the military conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday morning, after more than a month of bloodshed.
This was followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin (photo, above) saying in a statement on Tuesday that Russian peacekeepers will be deployed along the front line in Nagorno-Karabakh following the agreement.
Putin said he hoped the agreements “will set up necessary conditions for long-lasting and full-scale settlement of the crisis over Nagorno-Karabakh”.
There was no official immediate reaction from Baku, the capital and commercial hub of Azerbaijan.
Arayik Harutyunyan, the leader of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, said on Facebook that he gave agreement “to end the war as soon as possible”.
The declaration has followed six weeks of heavy fighting and advancement by Azerbaijan’s forces. Baku said on Monday it had seized dozens of settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh, a day after proclaiming victory in the battle for the enclave’s strategically positioned second-largest city.
“The decision is made basing on the deep analyses of the combat situation and in discussion with best experts of the field,” Pashinyan said on social media.
“This is not a victory but there is no defeat until you consider yourself defeated. We will never consider ourselves defeated and this shall become a new start of an era of our national unity and rebirth.”
The fighting had raised fears of a wider regional war, with Turkey supporting its ally Azerbaijan, while Russia has a defence pact with Armenia and a military base there.
Azerbaijan says it has, since Sept 27, retaken much of the land in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that it lost in a 1991-94 war which killed an estimated 30,000 people and forced many more from their homes. Armenia has denied the extent of Azerbaijan’s territorial gains.
- Reuters
