KORNIDZOR: Ethnic Armenian refugees began to leave Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday for the first time since Azerbaijan launched an offensive designed to seize control of the breakaway territory and perhaps end a three-decade-old conflict.
This week’s lightning operation could mark a historic geopolitical shift, with Azerbaijan victorious over the separatists and Armenia now publicly distancing itself from its traditional ally Russia.
“Yesterday, we had to put down our rifles. So we left,” a man in his thirties from the village of Mets Shen said as a first group of a few dozen people crossed the border and registered with Armenian officials in Kornidzor.
Most of the other refugees who crossed were women and children, including some from nearby Eghtsahogh, who had taken shelter around a Russian peacekeeping base after their village allegedly came under Azerbaijani shelling.
Separatist leaders have said they are negotiating the fate of some 120,000 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh in talks with Azerbaijani officials mediated by Russian peacekeepers. Many have seen shortages of food, water and power during a nine-month blockade.
The Armenian health ministry said 23 ambulances were carrying seriously wounded citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh to the border, accompanied by medics and Red Cross workers. Crowds of relatives gathered on the Armenian side awaiting news.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sought to deflect the blame onto long-standing ally Russia, signalling a breakdown in the countries’ security pact.
In nationally televised comments, the Armenian leader said the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and Moscow-Yerevan military-political cooperation were “insufficient” to protect the country, suggesting that he would seek new alliances.
The CSTO members pledge to defend one another from outside attack. But, bogged down in its own war in Ukraine, Russia refused to come to Armenia’s assistance in the latest Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, arguing that Yerevan itself had recognised the disputed region as part of Azerbaijan.
Now, Russian peacekeepers are helping Azerbaijan disarm the Karabakh rebels.
Armenia also announced that Pashinyan would meet his Azerbaijani counterpart President Ilham Aliyev at the summit of the European Political Community in the Spanish city of Granada on October 5, along with EU leaders like President Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Meanwhile, tension was running high at the Kornidzor crossing, five kilometres from the Hakari bridge on the convoy’s route, where angry relatives had gathered to await news and one man was so frustrated he pulled out a knife in front of police.
— AFP
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