15:45 24/09/2023
They fear ethnic cleansing, officials in Azerbaijan have promised to respect their rights
Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev's promises to give rights to Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region have not convinced 120,000 of them.
They do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan and are afraid of ethnic cleansing, Reuters news agency writes.
Officials in Azerbaijan say they will guarantee their rights, but Armenians fear repression.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also warned that Karabakh Armenians are likely to leave the region and that Armenia is ready to accept them.
"In recent days, there has been humanitarian aid in Nagorno-Karabakh, but this does not change the situation. And if living conditions are not created for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to live in their homes and effective protection mechanisms from ethnic cleansing, then most likely Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians will leave their homeland as the only way to save life".
The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but previously outside Baku's control, were forced to declare a ceasefire on September 20 following a 24-hour military operation by Azerbaijan's much larger army.
Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territories were controlled by Armenians at the end of the separatist war in 1994, but Azerbaijan managed to retake the territories and part of Nagorno-Karabakh during the 2020 war. The war ended with a ceasefire and the deployment of a contingent of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh.
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