The separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh announced on Thursday that it will dissolve and that the unrecognized republic will cease to exist on January 1, 2024, according to AFP.
The announcement comes after Azerbaijan carried out a military offensive to regain full control of the separatist region and demanded that Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh lay down their arms and the separatist government be dismantled.
Nagorno-Karabakh was ruled by Armenian separatist authorities for about thirty years.
Nearly half of the population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the Caucasus has fled to Armenia since Azerbaijan’s offensive in recent days.
There are now 53,629 refugees in Armenia, according to the latest data released by Yerevan’s chief executive on Thursday.
The decree on the dissolution of the government of the (unrecognized) enclave was signed by the region’s separatist president Samvel Shakhramanyan.
The document cites the agreement reached last week on an end to the fighting, with Azerbaijan guaranteeing the “free, voluntary and unhindered movement” of Nagorno-Karabakh residents.
On the other hand, the Armenian forces in the enclave were disarmed.
Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of forces of Armenian origin, backed by Yerevan’s army, after fighting that continued after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and 1994.
During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan retook parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed during the previous conflict.
Source: DN
