Azerbaijan sought to cement its grip on the Karabakh region a day after launching a lightning offensive aimed at disarming ethnic Armenian separatists.
“Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, and the whole world recognizes this, including the Armenian leadership,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an evening address on Sept. 20.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the mountainous Karabakh region has remained the subject of fierce dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Although most of Karabakh’s roughly 120,000 inhabitants are ethnic Armenians, the region is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
On Sept. 21, Azerbaijani officials met with ethnic Armenian leaders in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh to discuss Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.
On the same day, however, ethnic Armenians in Karabakh accused Azerbaijan of breaching the terms of a ceasefire deal brokered one day earlier by Russia.
Azerbaijan’s defense ministry called the allegation “completely false.”
There were also questions as to whether ethnic Armenian leaders in Karabakh had fully signed on to the ceasefire deal.
“We have an agreement on the cessation of military action, but we await a final agreement,” said David Babayan, an aide to separatist leader Samvel Shahramanyan.
He said the disarmament of Karabakh-based separatist groups—a key Azerbaijani demand—couldn’t be considered without security guarantees.
“A whole host of questions still need to be resolved,” Mr. Babayan said.
‘Act of Aggression’
In 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a six-week war over Karabakh. The conflict ended with a Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement that left Azerbaijan in control of the region.Since then, Russian peacekeepers have remained deployed along the fraught Armenia–Azerbaijan border, where violence continues to erupt intermittently.
On Sept. 19, Azerbaijan launched a major ground offensive into Karabakh with the aim of exerting full control over the region.
The move followed claims by Azerbaijan that several of its soldiers had been killed in attacks by ethnic Armenian separatists near the border.
Armenia, for its part, condemned the offensive as “an act of large-scale aggression.”
Several Western nations, including the United States, likewise condemned the move, calling on Azerbaijan to halt its offensive.
But Mr. Aliyev held firm, saying that the “counter-terrorist operation” came in response to repeated “provocations” by the Armenian side.
In any event, it was over within 24 hours, with Azerbaijan and Karabakh-based separatist leaders agreeing to a ceasefire brokered by Russia.
During the short-lived offensive, Azerbaijani forces assumed control over strategic positions throughout the region.
According to Azerbaijan’s defense ministry, significant amounts of Armenian arms and equipment were destroyed or seized during the operation.
Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s prime minister, has reportedly come under fire from domestic critics for his country’s perceived failure to come to Karabakh’s aid.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear how many people were killed—from either side—during the offensive.
Ethnic Armenian sources in Karabakh claim that at least 200 people were killed from their side. Azerbaijan claims that its forces suffered casualties but hasn’t provided specific figures.
The Epoch Times couldn’t independently verify claims made by either side.
It was later revealed that an unspecified number of Russian peacekeepers had also been killed—presumably by mistake—by Azerbaijani forces.
On Sept. 21, the Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Aliyev had agreed to continue holding trilateral talks with Armenian participation.
Speaking by phone, the two leaders agreed to “intensify negotiations in conformity with well-known trilateral agreements achieved ... in the 2020–2022 period,” according to a statement from the Kremlin.
The parties further agreed that the talks should be chiefly aimed at opening transport corridors, formally marking the Azerbaijan–Armenia border, and “drafting a [permanent] peace treaty” between the two countries.
Peacekeepers Blamed
Since 1991, Armenia has been a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a six-nation military alliance led by Russia.While Azerbaijan isn’t a CSTO member, it enjoys close relations with Russia, which has long sought to reconcile the two perennial foes.
After a deadly border clash earlier this month, Armenia accused Russia of failing to ensure its security in the face of Azerbaijani “aggression.”
Following Azerbaijan’s recent offensive, Armen Grigoryan, head of Armenia’s security council, accused Russian peacekeepers who are deployed in the region of failing to fulfill their mandate.
The United States has made similar claims in the past.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson recently told The Epoch Times that Russia—as guarantor of the 2020 ceasefire deal—had “not done what it is supposed to do in terms of ... preventing further violence.”
Russia, however, has rejected the assertion, pointing out that Azerbaijan had confined its offensive to sovereign Azerbaijani territory.
“We reject such criticisms [of Russia’s peacekeeping contingent], especially given Armenia’s decision to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sept. 20.
Azerbaijan’s actions, he said, “occurred on its de jure [legally recognized] territory.”
