Azerbaijan said on Wednesday it wants a “peaceful reintegration” of Nagorno-Karabakh and that a UN Security Council meeting would be “ineffective and harmful”, following its lightning victory over Armenian separatists in the decades-old disputed territory.
Hikmet Hajiev, advisor to the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev, stated at a press conference that the Azerbaijan had “the goal of the peaceful reintegration of the Karabakh Armenians” and “a normalization” of relations with Armenia.
He also promised “safe passage” for Armenian separatist forces, indicating that all actions on the ground would be coordinated with Russian peacekeepers.
The Armenian separatists were defeated within 24 hours and announced in a press release the signing of an agreement on the total cessation of hostilities, mediated by the command of Russian peacekeepers, who were deployed in the region for three years.
In detail, this agreement, confirmed by Baku, provides for “the withdrawal of the remaining units and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Armenia” and “the dissolution and complete disarmament of the formations of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army.”
The separatists also agreed to hold first talks on the reintegration of this area into Azerbaijan on Thursday in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh.
Azerbaijan further believed that a UN Security Council meeting on the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, requested by France, was “not necessary”.
“We believe that such a meeting, if it takes place, would be ineffective and harmful,” Hikmet Hajiev said.
However, the adviser clarified that his country would be ready to express “its legitimate opinions and concerns” to the Security Council should the meeting take place.
France, which considers Azerbaijan’s offensive illegal and unacceptable, called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday.
This could happen “in the coming days,” two diplomatic sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP), referring to Thursday.
Azerbaijan’s victory fuels fears of a mass departure of Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 residents, while footage broadcast by local media showed crowds gathering at Russian-controlled Stepanakert airport, the separatists’ capital.
Thousands of people have had to be evacuated since Tuesday by separatist forces and Russian soldiers.
Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh announced today that they have agreed to lay down their arms and negotiate the reintegration of part of the territory they control into Azerbaijan.
The decision came a day after Azerbaijan launched a military operation in the enclave with a predominantly Armenian population, leaving 32 dead and more than 200 injured, according to separatists.
Armenian separatists declared the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The declaration of independence sparked an armed conflict in which separatists, supported by Armenia, emerged victorious.
Thirty years later, in the fall of 2020, Azerbaijani forces recaptured two-thirds of the territory, located in the South Caucasus.
Under the agreement that ended the conflict in 2020, Russia, Armenia’s traditional ally, maintains a peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Source: DN
