- The ICRC and Russia are sending humanitarian aid to Karabakh
- Some Karabakh fighters are giving up their weapons
- US Senator visits border and appeals for transparency
- Karabakh Armenians say the world has failed them
- Horrifying reports of people on the run are emerging
NEAR KORNIDSOR, Armenia, Sept 23 (Portal) – The ethnic Armenian leadership of breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh said on Saturday the terms of its ceasefire with Azerbaijan were being implemented and work was underway to provide humanitarian aid and evacuate the wounded would be continued.
Earlier, Karabakh Armenians held another round of talks with Azerbaijani officials in the city of Shusha, three days after the ceasefire that followed a 24-hour lightning offensive in which Baku retook control of the mountainous region.
Work was also underway to restore power by September 24, the Karabakh Armenians said in a statement, which also referred to “political consultations” on the future of the region they call Artsakh and its 120,000 Armenian residents .
The Russian Defense Ministry said that as part of the ceasefire, Armenian separatists began handing over their weapons to Azerbaijan, including more than 800 weapons and six armored vehicles. Moscow has 2,000 peacekeepers in the region.
With Armenians suffering severe shortages of food and fuel following a months-long de facto blockade by Azerbaijan, an aid convoy from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) set off for Karabakh on Saturday, the first since the Baku offensive .
The ICRC said in a later statement that the convoy transported nearly 70 tons of humanitarian supplies, including wheat flour, salt and sunflower oil, along the Lachin corridor, the only road link from Armenia to Karabakh.
An ICRC team also carried out the medical evacuation of 17 people injured during the fighting, it said.
Separately, Russia said it had delivered more than 50 tons of food and other aid to Karabakh.
More than 20 other aid trucks with Armenian license plates have been lined up on a nearby roadside 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 Armenians’ rights but says they are free to leave the country if they prefer. Armenians fear they will be persecuted if they stay.
Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday that its main task was to ensure the safety of Armenian civilians and provide them with tents, hot food and medical assistance.
“We are also working on issuing documents, passports, etc. to the Armenian population,” ministry spokesman Elshad Hajiyev told Portal. “There are already people who have applied 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. Portal/Irakli Gedenidze ACQUIRES LICENSE RIGHTS
US Senator Gary Peters, who visited the Armenia-Azerbaijan border on Saturday, said the situation in Karabakh requires international observers and transparency from Azerbaijan.
“We’ve heard from the Azerbaijani government that there’s… nothing to worry about, but if that’s the case, we should allow international observers to see it,” Peters, a Michigan Democrat, told reporters.
Armenia, which lost a war against Azerbaijan over the region in 2020, has prepared space for tens of thousands of Armenians from Karabakh, including in hotels near the border, although Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says he does not want them to leave their homes unless the case is absolutely necessary.
Azerbaijan launched its “anti-terror” operation against Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday after some of its troops were killed in alleged separatist attacks in Baku.
Karabakh is more militarized than Baku assumed, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to the Azerbaijani president, said on social media on Saturday, publishing a list of weapons and ammunition seized in the last three days, including four tanks, 300 explosives and 441 mortar shells .
“ABSOLVED WORLD”
The reports of the fighting were frightening.
Armenui Karapetyan, an Armenian in Karabakh, said he is now homeless and only has a few possessions and a photo of his 24-year-old son, who died in 2020 after leaving his home in the village of Kusapat.
“Today we were thrown onto the streets – they turned us into vagabonds,” Karapetyan told Portal partner Armenia A1+.
“What can I say? We live in an unfair, abandoned world. I have nothing to say. I’m sorry for the blood of our boys. I feel sorry for our country, for which our boys sacrificed their lives, and today… I miss my son’s grave.
Thousands of Karabakh Armenians gathered at the airport and sought protection from Russian peacekeepers.
Svetlana Alaverdyan from Arajadzor village said she fled with only the clothes on her back after shootings took place in the village.
“They shot on the right side, they shot on the left side – we went out one by one without taking any clothes,” she told Armenia A1+.
“I had two sons – I gave them away, what else can I give? The superpowers are solving their problems at our expense.”
Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alexander Marrow. Editing by Gareth Jones and Clelia Oziel
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