Tuesday,
U.S. Weighs In On Russian-Armenian Tensions
U.S. - State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller answers questions during a
news briefing in Washington, July 18, 2023.
The U.S. State Department has called for the dispatch of an international
monitoring mission to Nagorno-Karabakh and effectively backed Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian’s claims that Russia cannot guarantee Armenia’s security.
“I do think that Russia has shown that it is not a security partner that can be
relied on,” Matthew Miller, the department spokesman, told a news briefing in
Washington on Monday, commenting on the ongoing war of words between Yerevan and
Moscow.
Tensions between the two longtime allies deepened early this month after
Pashinian stated that Armenia’s reliance on Russia for defense and security has
proved a “strategic mistake” because the latter is “unable or unwilling” to
defend the South Caucasus nation.
The Armenian premier doubled down on his criticism following Azerbaijan’s
September 19 offensive in Karabakh launched despite the presence of Russian
peacekeepers there. He said on Sunday that the military alliance with Russia is
not enough to ensure Armenia’s national security.
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded by accusing Pashinian of seeking to ruin
bilateral ties and reorient Armenia towards the West. Russian officials have
repeatedly charged that the United States and the European Union are keen to
drive Russia out of the South Caucasus.
Pashinian and his political allies have so far not signaled plans to get Armenia
out of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) or other Russian-led
blocs. Nor have they indicated any alternative geopolitical arrangements which
they believe can protect Armenia’s borders.
Miller reaffirmed U.S. support for Armenia’s territorial integrity but declined
to clarify what Washington could do if it is jeopardized by Azerbaijan. “What we
think is important is that Armenia and Azerbaijan reach a lasting peace
agreement,” he said in this regard.
ARMENIA - Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh arrive in the border village of
Kornidzor, .
Miller also reiterated U.S. concerns about the fate of Karabakh’s ethnic
Armenian population severely affected by last week’s Azerbaijani assault.
“The population of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should be able to remain
in their homes in peace and dignity, with respect for their rights and security
if they choose to do so,” he said. “Those who want to leave and return should be
allowed safe passage overseen by a neutral, independent third party.”
“We do believe there should be an international mission to provide transparency,
reassurance, and confidence to the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and the
international community, that … their rights and security will be protected
consistent with the public statements that Azerbaijan has made,” added the U.S.
official.
Yerevan advanced the idea of such a mission even before the latest escalation.
Baku strongly opposed it.
Baku, Yerevan Resume Talks On Peace Deal
Belgium - Armenian, Azerbaijani, French, German and EU officials meet in
Brussels, Septembe 26, 2023.
The European Union urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to find “decisive compromise
solutions” on Tuesday as it hosted fresh talks between senior officials from two
states one week after the Azerbaijani military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, and Hikmet
Hajiyev, a senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, met in Brussels
together with diplomatic advisers to EU chief Charles Michel, French President
Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The EU’s special envoy to the
South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, was also in attendance.
They are understood to have concentrated on preparations for Aliyev’s next
meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian which is expected to take
place on the sidelines of an EU summit in Granada, Spain on October 5.
A spokeswoman for Michel, Ecaterina Casinge, said Hajiyev and Grigorian
discussed “possible concrete steps to advance the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace
process in the upcoming possible meeting, such as those with regard to border
delimitation, security, connectivity, humanitarian issues, and the broader peace
treaty.”
“Concrete action and decisive compromise solutions are needed on all tracks of
the normalization process,” said Casinge.
“The EU believes that the possible meeting in Granada should be used by both
Yerevan and Baku to reiterate publicly their commitment to each other’s
territorial integrity and sovereignty in line with agreements reached previously
in Prague and Brussels,” she added in a statement.
Reuters quoted Hajiyev as calling the Brussels meeting “quite constructive” and
saying that it increased chances of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal. He did
not elaborate.
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian said late on Sunday that Baku and
Yerevan are now “very close” to signing a bilateral peace treaty which has been
the main focus of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations over the past year. He did
not clarify whether Pashinian’s administration is ready to make more concessions
now that Azerbaijan is regaining full control over Karabakh as a result of the
September 19-20 offensive.
U.S., EU Announce Relief Aid To Karabakh Refugees
• Susan Badalian
• Nane Sahakian
ARMENIA - Vehicles carrying refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh region queue on the
road near the border village of Kornidzor, .
The United States and the European Union pledged on Tuesday to provide urgent
humanitarian aid to ethnic Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh fleeing to
Armenia in droves amid the ongoing restoration of Azerbaijani control over the
region.
A steady stream of these refugees crossed the Armenian border for the third
consecutive day in cars, trucks and buses that jammed the main road connecting
Karabakh to Armenia. Their total number reached 28,000 as of 8 p.m. local time,
according to the Armenian government.
The vast majority of an estimated 100,000 people remaining in Karabakh are
expected to follow suit in the coming days and weeks. They too are unwilling to
live under Azerbaijani rule as a result of last week’s Azerbaijani military
offensive.
“We have been hungry for four days,” one of the refugees told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service in the Armenian border town of Goris. The visibly exhausted woman said
she and her family members spent five days at a Russian military base in
Karabakh before being evacuated to Armenia.
ARMENIA -- A refugee from Nagorno-Karabakh holds a child while standing next to
a car upon their arrival in the border village of Kornidzor,, .
Some of the other refugees said they left behind children and other loved ones
who went missing or were seriously wounded and hospitalized during the
Azerbaijani assault that reportedly left dozens of Karabakh Armenian civilians
dead.
All arriving refugees are redirected to a reception center set up by the
government in Goris. Government officials and private charity activists working
there offer them food, temporary housing and other urgent assistance.
Another Karabakh woman, who fled to Armenia together with her children on
Monday, complained that they have still not been provided with any
accommodation. “We are now going into the [Goris] municipality building to see
where they are going to send us,” she said.
In Yerevan, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatrian reaffirmed the Armenian
government’s pledge to accommodate all Karabakh refugees. In his words, 2,500
refugees have already been sent to their new homes in various parts of Armenia,
while 1,200 others are in the process of receiving government-funded housing.
“The other people [who fled Karabakh] have said that they have somewhere to live
and don’t need our assistance,” Khachatrian told a news conference.
ARMENIA - Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh register at the aid centre in the
border village of Kornidzor, .
Some refugees interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service said they have rejected
government offers to settle in towns or villages close to Armenia’s volatile
border with Azerbaijan. They said they do not want to fear for their safety
anymore.
Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), witnessed the flow of refugees and spoke to some of the displaced
Karabakh Armenians when she visited the Goris area adjacent to the Lachin
corridor on Tuesday.
“The experiences these families have had are harrowing,” she told reporters
there. “Many of them fled their villages under shelling and many who have
arrived here, according to the doctors that we spoke to, are suffering from
severe malnutrition.”
Power announced that the U.S. government will provide $11.5 million in
humanitarian assistance to the refugees.
“This assistance will be used to provide everything from food to psychosocial
support, given the psychological wounds that so many citizens are carrying,” she
said, adding that it will also support “efforts to reunite families” from
Karabakh.
Armenia - USAID chief Samantha Power talks to refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh,
.
“There are many unaccompanied children who have crossed into the Republic of
Armenia and it is absolutely urgent that they be reunited with their families,”
explained the U.S. official.
The European Union announced, for its part, a relief aid package worth 5 million
euros ($5.1 million) for Karabakh’s civilian population. An EU statement said
the sum will be spent on providing “cash assistance, shelter, food security and
livelihoods assistance” to up to 25,000 refugees in Armenia. It said similar aid
will be delivered through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to
around 60,000 Karabakh Armenian remaining in their homeland for now.
The ICRC is the only international humanitarian organization which is allowed by
Azerbaijan to operate in Karabakh. Power said Baku must also give other aid
agencies “full and unimpeded access to the Lachin corridor and into villages and
towns of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Armenian Medics Rushed To Karabakh After Deadly Blast
• Tigran Hovsepian
• Ruzanna Stepanian
• Robert Zargarian
Nagorno-Karabakh - This grab taken from video distributed by Siranush Sargsyan's
Twitter account on Sept. 25, 2023, shows smoke rising after a fuel depot
explosion near Stepanakert.
Azerbaijan allowed Armenian doctors on Tuesday to visit Nagorno-Karabakh to
treat and evacuate scores of people injured in Monday’s powerful explosion at a
fuel depot outside Stepanakert.
Karabakh authorities said at least 20 people were killed and over 270 others
seriously injured and hospitalized as a result of the explosion. They appealed
for urgent medical aid from Armenia, saying that Stepanakert’s two main
hospitals cannot to provide adequate care to all victims due to their limited
capacity and lack of medication.
A team of Armenian doctors flew to Stepanakert early in the morning and
evacuated the first injured Karabakh Armenians by helicopter hours later. They
were transported to hospitals in Yerevan. Three more such flights were carried
out in the following hours.
At least 14 patients were admitted to the Yerevan-based National Center for
Burns and Dermatology in the afternoon. An ambulance driver there said more of
them are on their way to the hospital.
“The team of doctors transported by helicopter from Armenia to Stepanakert with
necessary medicines and medical supplies are currently in the medical
institutions of the [Karabakh] republic and together with local doctors are
providing the necessary medical assistance to all the victims,” read a statement
released by Karabakh health authorities.
Early in the afternoon a convoy of Armenian ambulances escorted by
representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) left
Armenia for Karabakh through the Lachin corridor controlled by Azerbaijani
forces. A senior Azerbaijani official said, meanwhile, that Baku is ready to
open a “medical corridor” to Karabakh for the ICRC.
The precise cause of the blast remained unknown. An official in Stepanakert,
Davit Babayan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the authorities there believe
it was most probably an accident caused by “negligence.” He said they are hardly
in a position to conduct an investigation given the ongoing exodus of Karabakh’s
population to Armenia and Azerbaijan’s takeover of the region.
According to the Armenian government, the number of Karabakh residents who have
fled to Armenia since Sunday surpassed 13,500 by Tuesday morning. The Lachin
road connecting Karabakh to Armenia reportedly remained clogged by hundreds of
vehicles carrying other Karabakh Armenians.
Many Casualties Feared In Karabakh Fuel Depot Blast
Nagorno-Karabakh - A fuel depot outside Stepanakert burns after a powerful
explosion, .
A powerful explosion destroyed a fuel depot near Stepanakert, killing and
injuring many people, authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said late on Monday.
They said they are unable to immediately specify the number of casualties or
establish the cause of the explosion at the facility located on a highway
connecting the Karabakh capital to the town of Askeran.
Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanian, said more than 200 people
were injured in the explosion. He said that due to their limited capacity and
lack of medication Stepanakert’s two main hospitals cannot to provide adequate
care to all of these people. Many of the critically injured persons need to be
urgently flown to hospitals in Armenia, added Stepanian.
“Active efforts are being made to organize the transportation of the injured to
Armenia by helicopters,” the Armenian Ministry of Health told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service later in the evening.
The blast occurred amid a mass exodus of Karabakh’s population that followed
last week’s Azerbaijani military offensive.
Videos posted on social media showed a long line of cars parked near the depot
that received large quantities of gasoline over the weekend for the first since
Baku blocked traffic through the Lachin corridor last December. Their owners
were apparently waiting to fuel up and drive to Armenia along with their
families. Thousands of other Karabakh Armenians fled to Armenia earlier on
Monday.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Category: 2023
20 dead, nearly 300 injured in blast as Armenia refugees flee disputed enclave
ABC News
Sept 26 2023
An explosion Monday tore through a gas station in Nagorno-Karabakh amid exodus.
By Patrick Reevell
LONDON – At least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 were injured in an explosion on Monday night at a makeshift gas station being used by ethnic Armenian refugees as thousands sought to flee the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to local authorities, as senior U.S. officials visited Armenia to signal concern over the humanitarian crisis affecting the region's civilians.
Dozens of people are in a critical condition with severe burns and in urgent need of evacuation from the enclave where medical assistance was already minimal, the health ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh's unrecognised ethnic Armenia government, the Republic of Artsakh, said in a statement. It said many people were still missing following the blast.
The explosion and fire ripped through the fuel store on Monday night as hundreds of refugees were lining up for gas for their vehicles to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, according to local officials.
Thousands of ethnic Armenians have been leaving the enclave following a successful military offensive last week by Azerbaijan that defeated the local Armenian authorities and restored Azerbaijan’s rule over the region.
Over 13,500 people have crossed from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia since Sunday, according to a statement from Armenia’s government. It’s feared the enclave’s entire population — estimated at 120,000 — may seek to flee in the coming days.
Armenia’s prime minister on Monday said what was happening was the “ethnic cleansing” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population.
Long traffic jams of people seeking to leave were visible snaking miles along the only road out of Nagorno-Karabakh to a checkpoint in the "Lachin Corridor" that links the enclave to Armenia.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been at the center of a decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Internationally recognised as Azerbaijan’s territory, the two countries fought a bloody war over the enclave amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which Armenia backed local ethnic Armenian separatists, who succeeded in establishing control over most of the region. Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians were driven from the region during that war.
Azerbaijan reopened the conflict in 2020, launching a full-scale war that decisively defeated Armenia and forced it to largely abandon its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia helped broker a truce and dispatched a peacekeeping force there that remains deployed. Last week, Azerbaijan launched a new offensive that swiftly forced the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian’s leadership to surrender.
Since then thousands of ethnic Armenians have been preparing to leave the enclave, which has been under Azerbaijani blockade for nine months, unwilling to live under Azerbaijan’s rule and fearing they will face persecution.
Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, have expressed concern for Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population and warned Azerbaijan it bears responsibility for their rights and security.
The Biden administration has dispatched Samantha Power, currently administrator of USAID and senior another State Department official to Armenia to express U.S. support for the country amid the crisis.
Power on Tuesday visited the checkpoint at Armenia's border with Nagorno-Karabakh where refugees have been arriving, and called for international monitors and aid groups to be given access to the enclave and for Azerbaijan to facilitate the evacuation of injured civilians from there.
"It is absolutely critical that independent monitors as well as humanitarian organisations get access to the people in Nagorno-Karabakh who still have dire needs," Power told journalists at the checkpoint. "There are still tens of thousands of Ethnic Armenians there living in very vulnerable conditions," announcing the U.S. would provide $11.5 million in humanitarian assistance that would include everything from food to psychiatric support.
Power, who has been a high-profile campaigner for human rights, said she was in Armenia to also hear testimonies from people fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh and that she would be reporting back to the Biden Administration as it considers how to respond to the crisis.
Power and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, Yuri Kim met with Armenia's prime minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday. Power delivered a letter from President Joe Biden in which he expressed condolences for the loss of life in Nagorno-Karabakh and promised help on addressing humanitarian needs.
“I have asked Samantha Power, a key member of my cabinet, to personally convey to you the strong support of the United States and my Administration for Armenia’s pursuit of a dignified and durable regional peace that maintains your sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and democracy,” the letter read.
Pashinyan told Power the international community and Armenia had failed to prevent the “ethnic cleansing” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians.
“Unfortunately, at the moment the process of the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh is continuing, it is happening right now. It’s a very tragic fact. We tried to inform the international community that this ethnic cleansing would happen, but, unfortunately, we did not manage to prevent it,” Pashinyan told Power and Yuri Kim, the State Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, according to the prime minister’s press service.
Armenia and Azerbaijan were due to hold talks mediated by the European Union in Brussels on Tuesday, the first talks between the sides since Azerbaijan’s retook Nagorno-Karabakh.
Monday’s blast at the fuel station added a horrific complication to the exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh, with local authorities pleading for people to hold off leaving as the traffic-choking the roads out was preventing the evacuation of the severely injured.
Helicopters from Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, were reported to have flown to Nagorno-Karabakh to help evacuate some of the worst injured. A long line of ambulances was also filmed by Russian media crossing into the enclave.
The enclave’s Armenian health authorities said the hospitals in the enclave, already short of medicine and other equipment, were not equipped for the disaster.
Russia’s peacekeeping contingent said it was also providing medical assistance and showed videos of its soldiers evacuating some of the injured.
Ethnic Cleansing ‘Happening Right Now’ as Armenians Forced from Christian Homeland
Sept 26 2023
GEORGE THOMAS
An indescribable nightmare is unfolding as thousands of Armenians are on the run following Azerbaijan's military takeover of their homeland. Armenia's prime minister has declared that ethnic cleansing is underway.
More than 120,000 Armenians live in a landlocked enclave in Azerbaijan and many fear this takeover will wipe out their Christian and ethnic history.
Officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan are set to meet today in Brussels for the first time since Azerbaijan's Muslim-majority forces seized control of the predominately Armenian-Christian territory of Nagorno-Karabakh last week.
"It was a nightmare. There are no words to describe," said a distraught resident of Nagorno-Karabakh. "The village was heavily shelled. Almost no one is left in the village. Most people have been evacuated."
The blitz attack forced nearly 14,000 refugees to cross into Armenia, with thousands more stuck in massive traffic jams at the only checkpoint crossing.
Amidst all this, a massive explosion at a fuel depot killed 20 and injured more than 300 as refugees scrambled to get gas before escaping.
Joel Veldkamp is with the human rights group Christian Solidarity International.
"Our friends there told us that people in Karabakh are deciding some of them to have the bodies of their loved ones who were killed in this war to be taken to Armenia in refrigerated cars to be buried there because if they bury them in Karabakh they won't be able to visit them ever again and their graves may be desecrated by Azerbaijani forces," Veldkamp said on the group's social media platforms.
Ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh walk along the road as they flee Nagorno-Karabakh, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Vasily Krestyaninov)
Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
"This is an area of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, that has been contested for many years," said Dr. David Curry of Global Christian Relief. "It has historically been filled with Armenians, Armenian cultures, the Christian faith."
While it's been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, the area has been ruled by ethnic Armenians for three decades.
Two U.S. officials traveled to the region and met with Armenia's prime minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday. He told them ethnic cleansing is "happening right now."
"We received word yesterday from our friends in Nagorno-Karabakh that essentially deportations are beginning of the entire Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh," Veldkamp reported.
Armenians are some of the first people in the world to embrace Christianity. Now there's concern their religious and ethnic history in Nagorno-Karabakh could be wiped out.
"The population of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should be able to remain in their homes in peace and dignity with respect for their rights and security, if they choose to do so," said State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller. "Those who want to leave, and return should be allowed safe passage."
CBN contributor Chuck Holton who has reported extensively from Armenia warns Azerbaijan's ambitions don't stop at Nagorno-Karabakh's borders.
"The real concern here is that Azerbaijan is not going to stop by just taking over this one exclave (Nagorno-Karabakh). They are literally talking about taking all of Armenia," Holton told CBN's Christian World News program.
https://www2.cbn.com/news/world/ethnic-cleansing-happening-right-now-armenians-forced-christian-homeland
Statement by Spokesperson for President of the European Council Charles Michel on Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation – 26 September 2023
European Council
Council of the European Union
Sept 26 2023
Under the auspices of President Michel, his Diplomatic Advisers Simon Mordue and Magdalena Grono hosted a meeting between Secretary of Armenia’s Security Council Armen Grigoryan and Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev, with the participation of Diplomatic Advisers to FR President Macron and DE Chancellor Scholz, Emmanuel Bonne and Jens Ploetner, as well as EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar.
President Michel joined the participants for a brief exchange.
The EU invited participants to exchange views on the current situation on the ground and various efforts aimed at addressing the urgent needs of the local population.
The European Union closely follows all these developments and has been engaged at the highest level to help alleviate the impact of hostilities on civilians. The EU reiterated in this context its position on Azerbaijan’s military operation last week.
Hikmet Hajiyev outlined Azerbaijan’s plans to provide humanitarian assistance and security to the local population. The EU stressed the need for transparency and access for international humanitarian and human rights actors and for more detail on Baku’s vision for Karabakh Armenians’ future in Azerbaijan. The EU is providing assistance to Karabakh Armenians.
The meeting also allowed for intense exchanges between participants on the relevance of a possible meeting of the leaders in the framework of the Third EPC Summit scheduled for 5 October 2023 in Granada.
The participants took note of the shared interest of Armenia and Azerbaijan to make use of the possible meeting in Granada to continue their normalisation efforts.
In this regard, Armen Grigoryan and Hikmet Hajiyev engaged in talks on possible concrete steps to advance the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process in the upcoming possible meeting, such as those with regard to border delimitation, security, connectivity, humanitarian issues, and the broader peace treaty.
Concrete action and decisive compromise solutions are needed on all tracks of the normalisation process.
The EU believes that the possible meeting in Granada should be used by both Yerevan and Baku to reiterate publicly their commitment to each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in line with agreements reached previously in Prague and Brussels.
- Ecaterina Casinge
- +32 488 58 59 08
- +32 2 281 5150
If you are not a journalist, please send your request to the public information service.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/09/26/statement-by-spokesperson-for-president-of-the-european-council-charles-michel-on-armenia-azerbaijan-normalisation-26-september-2023/
U.S. calls on Azerbaijan to safeguard Armenians as thousands flee Karabakh
Reuters
Sept 26 2023
NEAR KORNIDZOR, Armenia, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Hungry and exhausted Armenian families jammed roads to flee homes in the defeated breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the United States called on Azerbaijan to protect civilians and let in aid.
The Armenians of Karabakh – part of Azerbaijan that had been beyond Baku's control since the dissolution of the Soviet Union – began fleeing this week after their forces were routed in a lightning operation by Azerbaijan's military.
At least 19,000 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who call Nagorno-Karabakh home have already crossed into Armenia, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan was quoted by Russia's TASS news agency as saying, with hundreds of cars and buses crammed with belongings snaking down the mountain road out of Azerbaijan.
Some fled packed into the back of open-topped trucks, others on tractors. Grandmother-of-four Narine Shakaryan arrived in her son-in-law's old car with six people packed inside. The 77 km (48-mile) drive had taken 24 hours, she said. They had had no food.
"The whole way the children were crying, they were hungry," Shakaryan told Reuters at the border, carrying her three-year old granddaughter, who she said had become ill during the journey. "We left so we would stay alive, not to live."
As Armenians rushed to leave the Karabakh capital, known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan, fuel stations were overwhelmed by panic buying. The authorities there said at least 20 people were killed and 290 injured in a massive blaze when a fuel storage facility blew up on Monday.
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power, in the Armenian capital Yerevan, called on Azerbaijan "to maintain the ceasefire and take concrete steps to protect the rights of civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh".
Power, who earlier handed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a letter of support from U.S. President Joe Biden, said Azerbaijan's use of force was unacceptable and that Washington was looking at an appropriate response.
She called on Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev to live up to his promise to protect ethnic Armenian rights, fully reopen the Lachin corridor that connects the region to Armenia and let in aid deliveries and an international monitoring mission.
Aliyev has pledged to guarantee the safety of Karabakh's Armenians but said his iron fist had consigned the idea of the region's independence to history.
"It is absolutely critical that independent monitors as well as humanitarian organisations get access to the people in Nagorno-Karabakh who still have dire needs," Power later said during a visit to the village of Kornidzor on the Azeri border.
She also announced $11.5 million in emergency U.S. aid for Karabakh.
Asked if she believed Azerbaijani forces had committed atrocities against civilians or combatants in Karabakh, she said: "We have heard very troubling reports of violence against civilians. At the same time given the chaos here and the trauma, the gathering of testimonies… of the people who have come across is something that is just beginning."
Ethnic Armenians who managed to get to Armenia have given harrowing accounts of fleeing death, war and hunger.
Some said they saw many dead civilians – one said truckloads. Others, some with young children, broke down in tears as they described a tragic odyssey of running from war, sleeping on the ground and with hunger churning in their bellies.
"We took what we could and left. We don’t know where we’re going. We have nowhere to go," Petya Grigoryan, a 69-year-old driver, told Reuters in the border town of Goris on Sunday.
Reuters was unable to independently verify accounts of the military operation inside Karabakh. Azerbaijan has said it targeted only Karabakh fighters.
The Azerbaijani victory changes the balance of power in the South Caucasus region, a patchwork of ethnicities crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines where Russia, the United States, Turkey and Iran are jostling for influence.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Armenia had relied on a security partnership with Russia, while Azerbaijan grew close to Turkey, with which it shares linguistic and cultural ties.
Armenia has lately sought closer ties with the West and blames Russia, which had peacekeepers in Karabakh but is now preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, for failing to protect Karabakh. Moscow denies blame and has told Pashinyan that he is making a big mistake by flirting with the United States.
The Kremlin said Russia's President Vladimir Putin discussed the Karabakh situation on Tuesday with President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran, which shares borders with both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Aliyev hinted on Monday at the prospect of creating a land corridor to Turkey across Armenia. Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan, who met Aliyev on Monday, said on Tuesday such a corridor must be completed.
Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, told Washington to stop stoking anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia.
Reporting by Felix Light NEAR KORNIDZOR, Armenia, Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Gareth Jones; Editing by Peter Graff and Alex Richardson
https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-us-trade-diplomatic-blame-over-instability-karabakh-crisis-2023-09-26/
Photos: Thousands of ethnic Armenians flee from Nagorno-Karabakh
Al-Jazeera, Qatar
Sept 26 2023
Ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh walk along the road from Nagorno-Karabakh to Kornidzor in the Syunik region of Armenia. [Vasily Krestyaninov/AP Photo]
Hungry and exhausted ethnic Armenian families are fleeing their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan defeated separatist forces in the breakaway region last week.
The ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh – part of Azerbaijan that had been beyond Baku’s control since the dissolution of the Soviet Union – began fleeing into Armenia this week after separatist forces were routed in a lightning operation by Azerbaijan’s military.
At least 19,000 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who call Nagorno-Karabakh home have already crossed into Armenia, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan was quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency as saying, with hundreds of cars and buses crammed with belongings snaking down the mountain road out of Azerbaijan.
Hungry and exhausted ethnic Armenian families are fleeing their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan defeated separatist forces in the breakaway region last week.
The ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh – part of Azerbaijan that had been beyond Baku’s control since the dissolution of the Soviet Union – began fleeing into Armenia this week after separatist forces were routed in a lightning operation by Azerbaijan’s military.
At least 19,000 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who call Nagorno-Karabakh home have already crossed into Armenia, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan was quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency as saying, with hundreds of cars and buses crammed with belongings snaking down the mountain road out of Azerbaijan.
See all the photos at https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/9/26/photos-thousands-of-ethnic-armenians-flee-from-nagorno-karabakh
At least 20 dead in gas station explosion as Nagorno-Karabakh residents flee to Armenia
Associated Press
Sept 26 2023
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — At least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 others were injured in an explosion at a crowded gas station in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region as thousands of ethnic Armenians rushed to flee into neighboring Armenia, the separatist territory’s authorities said Tuesday.
Some 19,000 people — about 16% of the region’s population — have fled across the border since Azerbaijan defeated separatists who have governed the breakaway region for about 30 years in a swift military operation last week, according to Armenian’s Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan.
Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh scrambled to flee as soon as Azerbaijan lifted a 10-month blockade on the region’s only road to Armenia. That blockade had caused severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel. While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of Armenians, many residents feared reprisals.
“I think we’re going to see the vast majority of people in Karabakh leaving for Armenia,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank. “They are being told to integrate into Azerbaijan, a country that they’ve never been part of, and most of them don’t even speak the language and are being told to dismantle their local institutions. That’s an offer that most people in Karabakh will not accept.”
The explosion took place as people lined up to fill their cars at a gas station outside Stepanakert, the region’s capital, late on Monday. The separatist government’s health department said that 13 bodies have been found and seven people have died of injuries from the blast. An additional 290 people have been hospitalized and scores of them remain in grave condition.
The cause of the blast remains unclear, but Nagorno-Karabakh presidential aide David Babayan said initial information suggested that it resulted from negligence, adding that sabotage was unlikely.
Armenia’s health ministry said a helicopter brought some blast victims to Armenia on Tuesday morning, and more flights were expected. The Russian peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh also provided helicopters to carry victims to Armenia.
Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said on X, formerly Twitter, that hospitals in Azerbaijan were ready to treat victims, but did not say if any had been taken there. Azerbaijan has sent in burn-treatment medicine and other humanitarian aid, he said.
Azerbaijan also said Tuesday that 30 metric tons (33 U.S. tons) of gasoline and 34 metric tons (37 U.S. tons) of diesel fuel were being sent into the region.
The Azerbaijani military routed Armenian forces in a 24-hour blitz last week, forcing the separatist authorities to agree to lay down weapons and start talks on Nagorno-Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.
Gasoline has been in short supply in Stepanakert for months, and the explosion further added to the shortages, compounding anxiety among many residents about whether they will be able drive the 35 kilometers (22 miles) to the border.
Cars bearing large loads on their roofs crowded the streets of Stepanakert, and residents stood or lay along sidewalks next to heaps of luggage.
Nagorno-Karabakh authorities asked residents to hold off on leaving in order to keep the road clear for emergency services and said buses would be provided for those who want to leave.
Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region within Azerbaijan under the Soviet Union. Separatist sentiment grew in the USSR’s dying years and then flared into war. Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, after a six-year separatist war that ended in 1994.
In another war in 2020, Azerbaijan took parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and completely reclaimed surrounding territory that it lost earlier. Under the armistice that ended the 2020 fighting, Russia deployed a peacekeeping force of about 2,000 to the region. Russia’s influence in the region has waned amid its war in Ukraine, emboldening Azerbaijan and its main ally, Turkey.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has blamed Moscow, the country’s main ally, of failing to prevent the hostilities, accusations the Kremlin has angrily rejected. The Russian Foreign Ministry retorted, denouncing Pashinyan’s statement as an “attempt to shift responsibility for failures in domestic and foreign policies onto Moscow” and part of efforts to take Armenia out of Russia’s orbit in favor of forging stronger ties with the West.
“The Armenian leadership is making a huge mistake by deliberately attempting to sever Armenia’s multifaceted and centuries-old ties with Russia, making the country a hostage to Western geopolitical games,” the ministry said in Monday’s statement.
It denied allegations that Moscow was fomenting the protests in Yerevan calling for Pashinyan’s ouster.
De Waal predicted that political infighting in Armenia would increase.
“We’re going to see unstable days in Armenia with various forces trying to get rid of Pashinyan and others on the contrary trying to defend him because they fear some kind of Russian-backed attempt to get rid of him,” he said.
Associated Press writers Aida Sultanova and Emma Burrows in London and Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/article/nagorno-karabakh-explosion-armenia-azerbaijan-e882628cc8a3895ddd23fd79d333b996
8 more bodies found in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azeri attack
12:40,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. 10 people were found on Monday in Nagorno-Karabakh during ongoing search and rescue operations after the September 19-20 Azeri attack.
8 bodies were also found during the September 25 search operations.
5 of the 10 people were handed over by Azerbaijan to Nagorno-Karabakh. 5 of the 8 bodies were also handed over by the Azeri side, the State Service of Emergency Situations of Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement.
Sweden allocates over $1,3 million to ICRC for Nagorno-Karabakh people
13:16,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Sweden has allocated over $1,3 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to meet the urgent needs of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ambassador of Sweden to Armenia Patrik Svensson said on X.
“Sweden allocates 15 million SEK to ICRC through SIDA to meet urgent humanitarian needs of Nagorno-Karabakh people including for medical transports, food and cash contributions,” Svensson said.
Armenian parliamentary committee to discuss ratification of Rome Statute on September 28
12:18,
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. An Armenian parliamentary committee will discuss the ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC on September 28.
The Armenian government on September 1 sent the Rome Statute to parliament for ratification.
In 2022, the Pashinyan Administration explained that it seeks to join the Rome Statute because it would allow to hold the government of Azerbaijan to account for its aggressions against Armenia.
The bill will be discussed at the Parliamentary Committee on State-Legal Affairs.