NEAR KORNIDZOR, Armenia, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Ethnic Armenian leaders in breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh said on Saturday that the terms of their ceasefire with Azerbaijan were being implemented and work was underway to deliver humanitarian aid and the evacuation of the wounded.
Earlier, Karabakh Armenians held another round of talks with Azerbaijani officials in the city of Shusha, three days after the Stop the fire That followed a 24-hour blitzkrieg offensive in which Baku retook control of the mountainous region.
Work is also underway to restore power by September 24, Karabakh Armenians said in a statement that also referred to “political consultations” on the future of the region, which they call Artsakh, and its 120,000 Armenian residents. .
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that under the terms of the ceasefire, Armenian separatists had begun delivering their weapons to Azerbaijan, including more than 800 weapons and six armored vehicles. Moscow has 2,000 peacekeepers in the area.
As Armenians suffer severe food and fuel shortages following a months-long de facto blockade by Azerbaijan, an aid convoy from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headed to Karabakh on Saturday, the first since the Baku.
The ICRC said in a later statement that the convoy had transported almost 70 metric tons of humanitarian supplies, including wheat flour, salt and sunflower oil, along the Lachin corridor, the only road link between Armenia and Karabakh.
An ICRC team also carried out the medical evacuation of 17 people injured during the fighting, he added.
Separately, Russia said it had delivered more than 50 tons of food and other aid to Karabakh.
More than 20 aid trucks, with Armenian license plates, have been lined up along a nearby highway since July. Azerbaijan said at the time that this convoy constituted a “provocation” and an attack on its territorial integrity.
PROTECT CIVILIANS
Azerbaijan wants to integrate the long-disputed Karabakh region and has promised to protect the rights of Armenians, but says they are free to leave if they prefer. Armenians say they fear persecution if they stay.
Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday that its main task was to ensure the safety of Armenian civilians and that it was providing them with tents, hot food and medical assistance.
“We are also working on issuing documents for the Armenian population, passports, etc.,” ministry spokesman Elshad Hajiyev told Reuters. “There are already people who have submitted their request to us.”
(1/6)A man rides a horse along a road near the Armenia-Azerbaijan border outside the village of Kornidzor, Armenia, September 23, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze Acquire license rights
US Senator Gary Peters, who visited the Armenia-Azerbaijan border on Saturday, said the situation in Karabakh required international observers and transparency on the part of Azerbaijan.
“We have heard from the government of Azerbaijan that there is … nothing to worry about, but if that is the case then we should allow international observers to see,” Peters, a Michigan Democrat, told reporters.
Armenia, which lost a 2020 war to Azerbaijan over the region, has prepared space for tens of thousands of Karabakh Armenians, including in hotels near the border, although Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says he does not want them to leave their homes unless let it be so. Absolutely necessary.
Azerbaijan launched its “anti-terrorist” program operation on Tuesday against Nagorno-Karabakh after some of its troops were killed in what Baku called separatist attacks.
Karabakh was more militarized than Baku believed, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan’s president, said on social media on Saturday, posting a list of weapons and ammunition that had been seized in the past three days, including four tanks. , 300 explosives and 441 mortar projectiles.
‘ABANDONED WORLD’
The accounts of the combats were chilling.
Armenui Karapetyan, an Armenian in Karabakh, said he was now homeless and had only a few belongings and a photograph of his 24-year-old son who died in 2020, after leaving his home in the village of Kusapat.
“Today they threw us out on the streets, they turned us into vagrants,” Karapetyan told Reuters partner Armenia A1+.
“What can I say? We live in an unjust and abandoned world. I have nothing to say. I am sorry for the blood of our boys. I am sorry for our lands for which our boys sacrificed their lives, and today… I miss the grave of my son.”
Thousands of Karabakh Armenians have gathered at the airport seeking protection from Russian peacekeepers there.
Svetlana Alaverdyan, from the village of Arajadzor, said she had fled with only the clothes on her back after gunfire engulfed the village.
“They were shooting from the right, they were shooting from the left. We left one after another, without wearing clothes,” he told Armenia A1+.
“I had two children, I gave them away, what more can I give? The superpowers solve their problems at our expense.”
Written by Guy Faulconbridge and Alexander Marrow Edited by Gareth Jones and Clelia Oziel
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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