Thousands of residents of Nagorno Karabakh have taken refuge in Armenia, despite the promise reiterated on Monday by the president of Azerbaijan that the rights of Armenians who would remain in this landlocked separatist territory of which his army regained control would be “guaranteed”. last week.
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All residents of Nagorno Karabakh, “regardless of their ethnicity, are citizens of Azerbaijan,” Ilham Aliev said. “Their rights will be guaranteed by the Azerbaijani state,” he added during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Nakhichevan, a strip of Azerbaijani land nestled between Armenia and Iran. .
“We hope that Armenia will seize the peaceful hand extended to it,” said Mr. Erdogan.
The visit of the Turkish head of state, who plays a major role in this part of the Caucasus, has a strong symbolic value, just a few days after the lightning victory of Azerbaijani soldiers against the troops of the self-proclaimed “republic” of Nagorno Karabakh. This region, mainly populated by Armenians and attached to Azerbaijan in 1921 by Soviet power, had de facto escaped the control of Baku since a war at the turn of the 1990s.
Russia, which sees the Caucasus as its own territory and deployed a peacekeeping force in this territory three years ago after a brief offensive by Azerbaijan, for its part firmly rejected on Monday the criticisms made the day before by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
“We are categorically against attempts to place responsibility on the Russian side and the Russian peacekeeping forces,” insisted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov, rejecting any “reproaches” for supposed failings.
Russian diplomacy went so far as to accuse Armenia, “hostage to the geopolitical games of the West”, of seeking to “destroy” relations between the two countries, denouncing a “huge error”. Dispatched there on Monday, the Russian Minister of the Interior, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, met the Armenian Prime Minister in Yerevan.
The European Union, for its part, was to receive on Tuesday in Brussels senior representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics which clashed militarily in Nagorno Karabakh from 1988 to 1994 (30,000 deaths) and fall 2020 (6,500 deaths).
In Yerevan, like every evening for a week, demonstrators denounced the inaction, according to them, of Mr. Pashinian in the face of Azerbaijan’s attack. There were several thousand of them Monday evening, waving the flag of the Armenian separatists of Nagorno Karabakh in the central square of the Armenian capital.
Influx of refugees
The influx of refugees from Nagorno Karabakh onto Armenian soil continued on Monday, with huge queues of vehicles reported on the only road linking its “capital” Stepanakert to Armenia.
In total, 6,650 people “forcibly displaced” from this enclave have entered Armenia since Sunday after the defeat of the separatist fighters, according to the latest report from the Armenian government.
In the Armenian town of Goris, the humanitarian center installed in the premises of the municipal theater was always full, noted an AFP journalist.
All night long, refugees were coming to register, find accommodation or transport to other regions of Armenia.
Anabel Ghoulassian, 41, from the village of Rev (Chalva in Azeri), who had just arrived by minibus in Goris with five of her seven children and her husband, recounted their journey.
At the start of the fighting last week, they all sought protection in the Russian base at Stepanakert airport.
But they were kicked out after the first night and then lived in an abandoned building.
“Those were horrible days, we were just sitting next to each other. Rich or poor, all in the same place,” she said.
“Nowhere to go”
Valentina Asrian, 54, who lived in the town of Vank, showed up with her grandchildren, including the youngest born who she is holding in her arms. “Who would have thought that the Turks (the name given to the Azeris by the local population, editor’s note) would enter this historic Armenian village…?,” she said.
“They bombed the village, there were injuries, my sister’s husband was killed,” adds Valentina. “I have no relatives here, nowhere to go.”
Azerbaijan, for its part, is committed to allowing rebels who give up their arms to return to Armenia.
Many fear that Armenians will flee en masse from Nagorno Karabakh, as Azerbaijani forces tighten their grip on the small mountainous territory populated by some 120,000 inhabitants. The humanitarian situation there remains very tense.
“Return to Karabakh”
On the Azerbaijani side, in localities close to Nagorno Karabakh, such as Terter and Beylagan, many of those who had to leave the region three decades ago want to return there.
“Of course, I want to return to Karabakh, we are tired of the war and the fear,” says Nazakat Valieva, 49, a former worker who lost her husband during the conflict.
“If the Armenians leave Karabakh, it doesn’t matter, if they stay, it’s very good for them, if they accept our citizenship,” comments Chemil Valiev, a 40-year-old trader in Ganja, the second largest city in Azerbaijan.
The bus he is about to board carries a poster showing the youthful face of an Azerbaijani soldier killed in the 2020 clashes.
Azerbaijan announced on Monday that two of its soldiers had been killed the day before by a mine explosion. On the Armenian side, the announced death toll is 200 dead in last week’s clashes.