Armenia, Azerbaijan Agree to End War
Will Peace Prevail in South Caucasus?
MOSCOW/YEREVAN/BAKU (Dispatches) -- Russian peacekeeping troops deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday under a deal that halted six weeks of fighting between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces.
The agreement ended military action and restored relative calm to the breakaway territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but until recently fully controlled by ethnic Armenians.
The territory that Azerbaijan will keep includes the mountain enclave’s second city of Shusha and ethnic Armenian forces must give up control of a slew of other areas by Dec. 1.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the deal, announced overnight and also signed by Moscow, should pave the way for a lasting political settlement to fighting that killed thousands, displaced many more and threatened to spark a wider war.
Azerbaijan, which had been trying to regain land lost during a war in the 1990s, hailed the deal as a victory. Azeris celebrated in the capital, Baku, sounding car and bus horns in delight and cheering and waving the Azeri national flag.
"This (ceasefire) statement has historic significance. This statement constitutes Armenia’s capitulation. This statement puts an end to the years-long occupation,” Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan denied Armenia had suffered a defeat but acknowledged a "disaster” for which he took personal responsibility.
Unrest broke out in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, where crowds stormed and ransacked government buildings overnight, labeling the deal a betrayal. Some protesters urged Pashinyan to quit, a demand later echoed by 17 political parties, while a petition was started demanding the agreement be annulled.
Despite the celebrations in Baku, some Azeris regretted Azerbaijan had stopped fighting before capturing all of Nagorno-Karabakh and were wary about the arrival of peacekeepers from Russia, which dominated the region in Soviet times.
In fighting that flared on Sept. 27, Azerbaijan says it retook much of the land in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that it lost in a 1991-94 war in which about 30,000 people were killed.
The capture of Shusha appears to have been a turning point. Perched on a mountain top above Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s biggest city, it gave Azerbaijan’s forces a commanding position from which to launch an assault.
Three previous ceasefire had failed and Nagorno-Karabakh leader Arayik Harutyunyan said there had been no option but to conclude a peace deal because of the risk of losing the whole enclave to Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan said he had concluded the peace deal under pressure from his own army. "I personally bear responsibility for this,” he later said on Facebook. "This is a big failure and disaster and mourning for lost lives.”
Under the ceasefire deal, Azerbaijan
will gain a road link to an Azeri exclave on the Iranian-Turkish border, something that will give Turkey a land bridge to Azerbaijan.
Putin said displaced people would be able to return to Nagorno-Karabakh and prisoners of war and bodies of those killed would be exchanged. All economic and transport links in the area would be reopened.
Russian peacekeepers will remain for at least five years, expanding Moscow’s military footprint in the region. Putin said they would be deployed along the frontline in Nagorno-Karabakh and in a corridor between the region and Armenia.
Almost 2,000 servicemen, 90 armored personnel carriers, and 380 vehicles and pieces of other hardware were being deployed, the Russian defense ministry said.
Russian media said 20 military planes had taken off for the region and had started arriving in Armenia en route to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been no agreement on deploying any Turkish peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the Turkish military will help staff a joint monitoring centre with Russian forces.
The agreement ended military action and restored relative calm to the breakaway territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but until recently fully controlled by ethnic Armenians.
The territory that Azerbaijan will keep includes the mountain enclave’s second city of Shusha and ethnic Armenian forces must give up control of a slew of other areas by Dec. 1.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the deal, announced overnight and also signed by Moscow, should pave the way for a lasting political settlement to fighting that killed thousands, displaced many more and threatened to spark a wider war.
Azerbaijan, which had been trying to regain land lost during a war in the 1990s, hailed the deal as a victory. Azeris celebrated in the capital, Baku, sounding car and bus horns in delight and cheering and waving the Azeri national flag.
"This (ceasefire) statement has historic significance. This statement constitutes Armenia’s capitulation. This statement puts an end to the years-long occupation,” Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan denied Armenia had suffered a defeat but acknowledged a "disaster” for which he took personal responsibility.
Unrest broke out in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, where crowds stormed and ransacked government buildings overnight, labeling the deal a betrayal. Some protesters urged Pashinyan to quit, a demand later echoed by 17 political parties, while a petition was started demanding the agreement be annulled.
Despite the celebrations in Baku, some Azeris regretted Azerbaijan had stopped fighting before capturing all of Nagorno-Karabakh and were wary about the arrival of peacekeepers from Russia, which dominated the region in Soviet times.
In fighting that flared on Sept. 27, Azerbaijan says it retook much of the land in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that it lost in a 1991-94 war in which about 30,000 people were killed.
The capture of Shusha appears to have been a turning point. Perched on a mountain top above Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s biggest city, it gave Azerbaijan’s forces a commanding position from which to launch an assault.
Three previous ceasefire had failed and Nagorno-Karabakh leader Arayik Harutyunyan said there had been no option but to conclude a peace deal because of the risk of losing the whole enclave to Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan said he had concluded the peace deal under pressure from his own army. "I personally bear responsibility for this,” he later said on Facebook. "This is a big failure and disaster and mourning for lost lives.”
Under the ceasefire deal, Azerbaijan
will gain a road link to an Azeri exclave on the Iranian-Turkish border, something that will give Turkey a land bridge to Azerbaijan.
Putin said displaced people would be able to return to Nagorno-Karabakh and prisoners of war and bodies of those killed would be exchanged. All economic and transport links in the area would be reopened.
Russian peacekeepers will remain for at least five years, expanding Moscow’s military footprint in the region. Putin said they would be deployed along the frontline in Nagorno-Karabakh and in a corridor between the region and Armenia.
Almost 2,000 servicemen, 90 armored personnel carriers, and 380 vehicles and pieces of other hardware were being deployed, the Russian defense ministry said.
Russian media said 20 military planes had taken off for the region and had started arriving in Armenia en route to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been no agreement on deploying any Turkish peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the Turkish military will help staff a joint monitoring centre with Russian forces.