A little over a week later armistice who followed the offensive with whom Azerbaijan defeated the separatist forces of the Armenian enclave Mountain–KarabakhThe Azerbaijani government arrested the former head of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh. Reuben Vardanyan. This was announced by the border authorities Baku which showed a photo of Varadanya allegedly standing in handcuffs (the leader’s hands were not visible in the photo) between two officers.
Russian-Armenian oligarch, originally from YerevanVardanyan was leader of the unrecognized separatist enclave from November 2022 to February 2023. Last year he renounced his Russian citizenship to join the Nagorno-Karabakh separatists. He was trying to escape to Armenia when he was stopped near the city Lachin Corridorthe same one that the Azerbaijani government supported last April with checkpoints that prevented this Deliveries of humanitarian aid to the Transcaucasian region. The dynamics of the arrest were also confirmed by Vardanyan’s wife. Veronica Zonabendwith a message on the Telegram channel managed by her husband.
And we are talking about a humanitarian emergency these days Armeniawhere they ended up according to authorities over 50,000 refugees Escape from Azerbaijan for fear of a “ethnic cleansing” against the Armenians. A hypothesis denounced by the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and supported by several activists and analysts. In Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that Baku had conquered from Armenia during the war Second Mountain War in 2020they lived 120,000 ethnic Armenians. The roads towards the Armenian capital remain flooded with trucks, while Azerbaijani authorities have raised the death toll from the explosion at a fuel depot on the busy exodus route to 68.
Meanwhile, the international community continues to condemn the Azerbaijani offensive United States who said they found that Baku had used force against civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh and You think about an answer. From that Germany the foreign minister, Annalena Baerbockkeep writing X To ask Baku to allow inspection of international organizations on the territory. “There is a need transparency“The eyes and ears of the international community are on Azerbaijan,” the minister said. “It would be a sign of confidence that Azerbaijan takes seriously its obligations to the security and well-being of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh if it were to allow the entry of international observers,” he added. However, in Armenia, protests in recent days against Prime Minister Pashinyan’s poor intervention in defense of the enclave’s Armenians have stopped, but the population has asked for Europe Sanctions to Azerbaijan for what happened.
Baku, for its part, responded by declaring that it wanted to guarantee:Reinstatement” of Armenians living in Karabakh and rejected the accusations of ethnic cleansing made by Armenia. The Azerbaijani President Ilham AliyevCommenting on the success of the “military operation” in Berg, as he defined it, he stated that the Armenians present in the area will be able to do so “Finally breathe a sigh of relief again”, adding that he is guaranteed the right to vote, education and the free exercise of the Christian faith. The ethnic Armenian population is actually of the Christian faith, while the majority of Azerbaijani citizens are of the Muslim faith.
There is currently no evidence of the whereabouts of the separatist republic’s former prime minister, but Azerbaijan has indicated that it intends to bring some key figures in the enclave’s armed forces to trial even after the separatists’ surrender. “We have accused members of the criminal regime and will bring them to justice,” the Azerbaijani prime minister said in recent days.