The separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh are negotiating on Saturday with Azerbaijan, which has just inflicted a heavy military defeat on them, the return to peace in this region whose majority Armenian population fears for its future.
After their capitulation and the ceasefire concluded on Wednesday following a lightning offensive launched a day earlier by Baku, they must notably discuss the withdrawal of their troops, while continuing to lay down their weapons.
This mountainous enclave, which had been attached in 1921 by Soviet power to Azerbaijani territory, had in the past been the scene of two wars between the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia: one from 1988 to 1994 (30,000 deaths) and the other in the fall of 2020 (6,500 deaths).
“In accordance with the agreements on the cessation of hostilities, the armed formations of Karabakh began to hand over” their weapons “under the control of Russian peacekeeping forces,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.
Six armored vehicles, more than 800 small arms and around 5,000 munitions have so far been returned, the Russian peace contingent said.
The talks between the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities and the Azerbaijani side which began on Thursday “under the auspices of Russian peacekeepers” should make it possible to “organize the process of withdrawal of troops and ensure the return to their homes of citizens displaced by military aggression,” according to the separatists.
The parties are also discussing “the procedure for entry and exit of citizens” from this region, they added.
All at a time when thousands of civilians remain faced with a humanitarian emergency in Nagorno-Karabakh, whose “capital” Stepanakert is, local authorities say, surrounded by Azerbaijani soldiers.
“We hope for evacuations soon”
Originally from this city, Yana Avanessian, a 29-year-old law teacher, assures, like many other Armenians managing as best they can to contact their loved ones, that the situation there is “horrible”.
“We hope for evacuations soon, especially people whose homes have been destroyed,” the young woman confided to AFP, in the middle of a small group of people like her consumed by worry present at the Armenian checkpoint from Kornidzor, very close to Nagorno-Karabakh.
“I’ve been waiting for three days and three nights. I sleep in the car,” says Garik Zakarian, who lived until last December in the village of Eghtsahog, almost within reach, on the other side of the valley, and where friends, his beautiful -mother and brother-in-law are still living.
“I have no hope [de les voir rapidement évacués] but I couldn’t do nothing. Just being there, seeing the Russian base a kilometer away, I feel better physically,” said this 28-year-old man.
And everyone obediently moves aside when cars filled with Armenian soldiers or convoys of the Russian interposition force pass, the only ones authorized to continue their journey.
Little glimmer of hope
An AFP correspondent noted that Stepanakert was deprived of electricity and fuel. Its inhabitants, who cannot find their missing loved ones due to a lack of lists of the dead and injured, also lack food and medicine.
Azerbaijani troops “are everywhere around Stepanakert, they are on the outskirts”, a spokesperson for the local authorities, Armine Hayrapetian, told AFP, saying that people were hiding “in the cellars”.
A small glimmer of hope, a first convoy of the International Red Cross entered Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday, noted an AFP journalist on site.
“The ICRC passed through the Lachin corridor to bring mainly 70 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the population,” declared an official of the International Red Cross, met by AFP at the Armenian checkpoint of Kornidzor, on the way. of the convoy.
The Azerbaijani military operation, which ended in 24 hours at midday on Wednesday, left at least 200 dead and 400 injured, according to Armenian separatists.
And Baku’s victory fuels fears that many of Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 residents will leave, even though Armenia has promised that no mass evacuation is planned. She nevertheless said she was ready to welcome “40,000 families” of refugees.
Pachinian under pressure
Accused of passivity towards Azerbaijan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian recognized on Friday that “the situation” remained “tense” in Nagorno-Karabakh, where “the humanitarian crisis continues”.
But “there is hope of positive dynamics,” added the head of government, for whom the ceasefire is “generally” respected.
People hostile to Mr. Pashinian demonstrate every day in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, to protest against the management of the crisis by the executive.
Several opposition leaders, for their part, have announced their intention to open impeachment proceedings in Parliament against the head of government.
According to the Armenian police, 98 demonstrators were arrested on Friday, while Mr. Pashinian calls for calm and to take “the path” to peace, although it is “not easy”.