Representatives from Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijan government are meeting for talks Thursday to discuss the future of the breakaway region Azerbaijan claims to fully control following a military offensive this week.
Representatives from Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijan government are meeting for talks Thursday to discuss the future of the breakaway region Azerbaijan claims to fully control following a military offensive this week.
Nagorno-Karabakh authorities and the Azerbaijan State News Agency say the talks Thursday between regional leaders and the Baku government will focus on Nagorno-Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.
The talks come after local Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to lay down their weapons following the latest outbreak of fighting in the decades-long separatist conflict.
According to the Azerbaijan State News Agency, a delegation from Nagorno-Karabakh, accompanied by Russian peacekeepers, arrived for talks in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh which is about 100 km (62 miles) north of Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s regional capital.
Authorities in the ethnic Armenian region that has run its affairs without international recognition since fighting broke out in the early 1990s declared around midday Wednesday that local self-defense forces will disarm and disband under a Russia-mediated cease-fire.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev trumpeted victory in a televised address to the nation, saying that his country’s military had restored the region’s sovereignty.
The U.N. Security Council scheduled an urgent meeting Thursday on the Azerbaijani offensive, at the request of France.
On Tuesday, the Azerbaijan army unleashed an artillery barrage and drone attacks against outnumbered and undersupplied pro-Armenian forces, which have been weakened by a blockade of the region in the southern Caucasus Mountains that is recognized internationally as being part of Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan said at least 200 people, including 10 civilians, were killed and more than 400 others were wounded in the fighting. He said earlier that children were among the dead and wounded. The figures could not immediately be independently verified.
The hostilities worsened an already grim humanitarian situation for residents who have endured food and medicine shortages for months as Azerbaijan enforced a blockade of the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.
