2023-09-20 11:10:53
A ceasefire was reached in Nagorno-Karabakh, after the Armenian forces surrendered to the Azerbaijani army today (Wednesday). The armed forces of the Armenian Republic of Artsakh have agreed to disarm, just one day after the Armenian enclave was attacked.
“During two days of stubborn battles, the military forces of Artsakh defended themselves against the enemy, who was far superior in terms of personnel and military equipment, and caused a great loss of life,” said a statement issued by the office of the president of the republic, Samvel Shermanyan. Unfortunately, there are many casualties on the Armenian side. The enemy managed to penetrate several military positions and take control of them, and occupy several strategic points. That is why the authorities of the republic accept the cease-fire proposal of the Russian peacekeeping forces.”
A statement from the government of the republic states that the Armenian military forces will be removed from Nagorno-Karabakh and the area beyond Achin, and the Armenian military forces in the Republic of Artsakh will be completely disarmed.
Tomorrow, a meeting will be held between representatives of the government of Azerbaijan and the government of the Republic of Artsakh to discuss the details of regulating the lives of the residents of the Armenian Republic under the Azeri regime.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia was not involved in the drafting of the ceasefire agreement. “We have no military forces in Nagorno-Karabakh since August 2021.”
Nearly 100 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the Armenian Republic of Artsakh since the start of the Azeri attack on it about 24 hours ago, according to a report from an official in the Republic. Yesterday morning, Azerbaijan launched an attack on military positions in the autonomous Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, known as the Republic of Artsakh. According to reports in the Armenian media, several Armenian villages were evacuated following the attack.
The Azeri Ministry of Defense announced this morning that its forces have so far taken over more than 60 outposts and destroyed up to 20 military vehicles.
The bloody history of the disputed region
Armenians have been living in your country for thousands of years. Starting from the 4th century AD, monasteries with a unique Armenian architecture were built there, some of which still stand today. The land changed hands between the empires. Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Seljuks and Ottomans, who gave it the name “Karabakh”, “Black Garden” in Turkish and Persian. The word “Ngorno”, “mountainous” in Russian, was added under Soviet control.
The remoteness of the mountainous region from large cities and trade routes, and the closeness of its Armenian population, which was always rural and sparse, earned its inhabitants partial sovereignty under the various conquerors. The significance that the foreigners attributed to the land was negligible, and it does not have precious natural resources or a large population that can be enslaved. However, the Armenians saw the Artsakh mountains as a sacred homeland.
At the end of World War I, Britain gave the Sultan of Baku control of a new country called Azerbaijan. Karabakh was included in the borders of the new state. Azerbaijan was created by Britain to prevent the Russians and Persians from taking over the oil in the south-east Caucasus. Since its foundation, atrocities by its Muslim inhabitants began against the Christian Armenian population. A series of massacres throughout the 20th century purged most of Azerbaijan of its Armenian inhabitants, but Nagorno-Karabakh remains a solid Armenian majority.
The residents of Nagorno-Karabakh were the first to demand independence from the Soviet Union, already in 1988. With the breakup of the communist bloc, and the declaration of the independence of the Republic of Artsakh by the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a war began between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In this war, known today First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Armenians overcame the Azeris and took over large areas from Azerbaijan. Thousands of Azeris fled the territories occupied by the Armenians, leaving behind modern ghost towns. The war ended in 1994 after about 30,000 people were killed, after which relative peace was maintained in the sector for two decades, during which the Armenians ruled Nagorno-Karabakh.
In September 2020, the Azerbaijani army invaded the Republic of Artsakh, the Armenian enclave in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In 44 days of fighting, thousands of Armenian soldiers and hundreds of civilians were killed, and Azerbaijan captured large parts of the rope. The war, which was nicknamed Second Nagorno-Karabakh Warwas terminated through Russian mediation that redistributed the Nagorno-Karabakh borders between the Azerbaijanis and the Armenians for the first time since 1994. Stepankart, the capital of the republic and the largest city in the region, remained under Armenian control, but most of the territory passed to Azeri control, including the city of Shushi, the historical capital of the region, which overlooks Stepankart above.
One of the consequences of the war is that the residents of Stepankart and the rest of the Republic of Artsakh are completely dependent on the supply of food, energy, products and medicine through the only road that connects them to Armenia, the Lachin Pass. In the cease-fire agreement, it was determined that the crossing would be secured by Russian peacekeeping forces, however, about nine months ago, the Azerbaijani army blocked the crossing, and the Russian forces did not prevent it from doing so. Since then, no one has entered or left your country. The Armenians fear that the prolonged siege of the Republic of Artsakh was only the first step on the way to the total occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the cleansing of the region from its Armenian inhabitants.
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