YEREVAN – Azerbaijan’s prosecutor basic issued an arrest warrant for ex-Nagorno-Karabakh leader Arayik Harutyunyan Sunday as the primary United Nations mission to talk over with the area in 3 a long time arrived in the former breakaway state.
Harutyunyan led the breakaway area, which is the world over identified as a part of Azerbaijan however used to be in large part populated by way of ethnic Armenians, between May 2020 and final month, when the separatist government said it could dissolve itself by way of the top of the yr after a three-decade bid for independence.
Azerbaijani police arrested one among Harutyunyan’s former high ministers, Ruben Vardanyan, on Wednesday as he attempted to move into Armenia in conjunction with tens of hundreds of others who’ve fled following Baku’s 24-hour blitz last week to reclaim keep an eye on of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Harutyunyan and the enclave’s former army commander, Jalal Harutyunyan, are accused of firing missiles on Azerbaijan’s third-largest town, Ganja, right through a 44-day battle in past due 2020, native media reported. The conflict between the Azerbaijani army conflict and Nagorno Karabakh forces ended in the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the area.
The arrest warrant announcement by way of Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev displays Azerbaijan’s purpose to temporarily and forcefully implement its grip at the area following 3 a long time of warfare with the separatist state.
While Baku has pledged to admire the rights of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, many have fled because of worry of reprisals or dropping the liberty to make use of their language and to apply their faith and cultural customs.
In a briefing Sunday, Armenia’s presidential press secretary, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, stated that 100,483 folks had already arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a inhabitants of about 120,000 ahead of Azerbaijan’s offensive.
Some folks coated up for days to flee the area since the handiest path to Armenia — a winding mountain highway — turned into jammed with slow-moving cars.
A United Nations delegation arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh Sunday to observe the placement. The mission is the group’s first to the area for 3 a long time, because of the “very complicated and delicate geopolitical situation” there, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric advised newshounds Friday.
Local officers brushed aside the talk over with as a formality. Hunan Tadevosyan, spokesperson for Nagorno-Karabakh’s emergency products and services, stated the U.N. representatives had come too past due and the selection of civilians left in the regional capital of Stepanakert may well be “counted on one hand.”
“I did the volunteer work. The people who were left sheltering in the basements, even people who were mentally unwell and did not understand what was happening, I put them on buses with my own hands and we took them out of Stepanakert,” Tadevosyan advised Armenian outlet News.am.
“We walked around the whole city but found no one. There is no general population left,” he stated.
Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan stated some folks, together with older adults, had died whilst at the highway to Armenia as they had been “exhausted due to malnutrition, left without even taking medicine with them, and were on the road for more than 40 hours.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan alleged Thursday that the exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh amounted to “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry strongly rejected Pashinyan’s accusations, pronouncing the departure of Armenians used to be “their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation.”
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Associated Press creator Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this file.