Today's Edition
KORNIDZOR (ALETIHAD)
120,000 ethnic Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh region will leave for Armenia as they do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan, the breakaway region’s leadership said.
Armenia’s Prime Minister also said that the Karabakh Armenians were likely to leave the region and that Armenia was ready to take them in following last week’s defeat at the hands of Azerbaijan in a conflict dating back to the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan that was previously beyond Baku’s control, were forced to declare a ceasefire on September 20 after a lightning 24-hour military operation executed by the Azerbaijani military.
Azerbaijan says it will guarantee their rights and integration into the region.
“Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan. 99.9% prefer to leave,” David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the leader of the “Armenians of Karabakh”, told Reuters.
Babayan said it was unclear when the population would move down the Lachin corridor, which links the territory to Armenia.
In an address to the nation, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that some humanitarian aid had arrived.
According to Russia’s TASS news agency, Armenia “will lovingly welcome our brothers and sisters from Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinyan said.
Last week’s Azerbaijani victory appears to have ended a decades-old “frozen conflict” of the Soviet Union’s dissolution.
The Armenian authorities in the region said late on Saturday that about 150 tonnes of humanitarian cargo from Russia and another 65 tonnes of flour shipped by the International Committee of the Red Cross had arrived in the region.
“Given the scale of humanitarian needs, we are increasing our presence there with specialised personnel in health, forensics, protection, and weapons contamination,” the ICRC said in a statement.
With 2,000 peacekeepers in the region, Russia said that under the terms of the ceasefire, six armoured vehicles, more than 800 small arms, anti-tank weapons, portable air defence systems, and 22,000 ammunition rounds had been handed in by Saturday.
Pashinyan said on Friday that space for 40,000 people from Karabakh had been prepared in Armenia.
Armenian media platform CivilNet published pictures and videos of ethnic Armenian civilians who had arrived in Armenia from the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Among those shown in the pictures were women and children. Reuters was unable to verify the report immediately.
