Azerbaijan and Armenia cease fire to stop fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh
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However, he did not say where the evacuated people had been taken. Thousands of people gathered in Armenia’s capital Yerevan on Tuesday and blocked the road. Protesters demanded protection of people of Armenian origin in Nagorno-Karabakh. During this time he also clashed with the police.
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire on Wednesday to end the fighting that has been going on for the past two days in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Officials from both sides gave this information. About an hour after the ceasefire was announced, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said the atmosphere of hostilities in the area had “reduced rapidly.” Azerbaijani officials said it had halted its military campaign that began on Tuesday after separatist officials announced they were surrendering their arms. However, it is not yet clear whether fighting continues in some areas or has stopped. On Tuesday, Azerbaijan targeted Armenian positions in mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh with artillery.
It is part of Azerbaijan and the area has been occupied by forces of Armenian origin since a separatist war in the 1990s. There are also reports of many people being killed and a large number injured in the recent fighting. Nagorno-Karabakh has been facing food shortages and a humanitarian crisis for several months, and the problems were further compounded by increased hostilities. The artillery attack raised fears of an all-out war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which have been fighting for the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh for three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2020, there was a war between the two countries over this area for about six weeks. Regional powers like Russia and Turkey are also involved in this conflict.
Turkiye supports Azerbaijan while Russia has a mediating role and its mediation helped end the 2020 fighting. Russian peacekeepers are deployed to monitor the area and both sides said Russian peacekeepers helped reach the current agreement. Talks are scheduled to take place on Thursday between Azerbaijani officials and ethnic Armenian officials of Nagorno-Karabakh over ‘reuniting’ the region back into Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said the vision of the agreement is to remove Armenian military troops and equipment from Nagorno-Karabakh and disarm local militias.
Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan said his government did not take part in the discussions or negotiations for a settlement, but ‘took cognizance’ of the decision taken by the region’s separatist authorities. Azerbaijan accused Armenia of smuggling weapons into the area since the end of the separatist war. He claimed that because of this he closed the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, causing shortage of food items and medicines. While giving information about the military operation on Wednesday, Azerbaijan made several complaints, including the attack by the Armenian forces on its positions in the area, laying of landmines and carrying out acts of sabotage.
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry has denied the presence of its troops or military equipment in Nagorno-Karabakh. He said the news of sabotage and landmines was a “lie”. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan alleged that Azerbaijan’s main objective is to put Armenia in trouble. Azerbaijan said it was targeting only military targets. However, Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement that the region’s capital, Stepanakert, and villages in the area were subjected to “heavy shelling” on Tuesday. Before the ceasefire, explosions were heard regularly every few minutes around Stepanakert on Wednesday morning. Some blasts were happening near the city while others were happening in nearby cities.
Devastation could be seen on the streets in Stepanakert, where shop windows were broken and damaged vehicles were lying in front. Nagorno-Karabakh’s human rights commissioner Geghan Stepanyan said on Wednesday that a total of 32 people, including seven civilians, were killed and more than 200 were injured in the fighting. Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office said one person was killed when Armenian forces opened fire on the Azerbaijan-controlled town of Shusha in Nagorno-Karabakh. This claim can be independently verified. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that its peacekeepers present in the Nagorno-Karabakh region have evacuated two thousand civilians.
However, he did not say where the evacuated people had been taken. Thousands of people gathered in Armenia’s capital Yerevan on Tuesday and blocked the road. Protesters demanded protection of people of Armenian origin in Nagorno-Karabakh. During this time he also clashed with the police. Russia’s state news agency reported that people were gathering in downtown Yerevan shortly after the ceasefire was announced on Wednesday.
Disclaimer: IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.
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