Russia withdraws peacekeepers and leaves total control to Azerbaijan – News

In a video conference with journalists, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed reports of the withdrawal, but did not provide further details.

Hikmet Hajiyev, head of foreign policy in Azerbaijan’s presidential administration, confirmed the withdrawal, saying it was agreed by both countries, but did not explain why Russian forces were leaving the enclave, despite acknowledging that the Russian presence was increasing. became superfluous after Azerbaijan regained full control of the region last year.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region was under the control of ethnic Armenians until the 2020 war, which resulted in Baku regaining control of parts of the enclave.

The war ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that called for the deployment of around 2,000 peacekeepers in the parts of Karabakh that were still held by the Armenians.

Among the duties of these forces was to ensure free passage on the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

However, Azerbaijan began blocking the road in late 2022, claiming that Armenians were using it to transport weapons and smuggle minerals. At the time, Russian forces did not intervene.

Due to the blockade, and after months of increasing food and medicine shortages in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan launched a devastating attack in September 2023 that forced the Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh to capitulate after a day of mediated negotiations by Russian forces.

After Azerbaijan regained full control of the enclave, which had a population of around 120,000, more than 100,000 Armenians fled the region, although Baku said they were welcome to stay and promised that their human rights would be guaranteed. .

But, in addition to the withdrawal of Russian troops, Armenia and Azerbaijan announced today that they had begun to demarcate their common border, an important step for the two Caucasus countries, which have fought several wars over territorial issues, despite the situation on the ground be getting complicated.

In a statement, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Interior stated that groups of experts are “clarifying the coordinates based on a geodetic survey of the terrain”.

The Armenian Ministry of Interior, which confirmed that “demarcation work” was being carried out on the border, ruled out “the transfer of any part of Armenia’s sovereign territory” to Baku following this process.

Last month, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian accepted a request from Baku for the return of four border villages confiscated by Yerevan forces during a war in the 1990s.

The decision triggered demonstrations by hundreds of Armenians in the border region, who fear being isolated and under Baku’s control.

On Monday, they briefly blocked the road connecting Armenia to Georgia, which passes nearby and represents the main connection to the outside world for the local population. They also tried to prevent demining work.

Today, however, new protests broke out in several places in Armenia, particularly near Lake Sevan and the city of Noyemberyan.

Last week, the two rival countries announced their intention to demarcate their border based on maps dating back to the Soviet era.

Pachinian stressed the need to resolve border disputes to “avoid a new war” with Azerbaijan.

The two former Soviet republics fought two wars, the first in the 1990s, won by Armenia and which left more than 30,000 dead, and the second in 2020, won by Azerbaijan and which left more than 6,000 dead.

Following the Armenian defeat in 2020, Yerevan was forced to cede to its adversary significant territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave it had controlled for around 30 years.