Armenia signs ‘painful’ deal with Azerbaijan and Russia to end war in Nagorno-Karabakh
- Declaration by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan comes after six weeks of heavy fighting over disputed region
- Azerbaijani forces had made significant gains against Armenia-backed fighters
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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Tuesday he had signed a “painful” agreement with Azerbaijan and Russia to end the war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“I have signed a statement with the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan on the termination of the Karabakh war,” Pashinyan said in a statement posted on his Facebook page, calling the move “unspeakably painful for me personally and for our people.”
He said the agreement would take effect from 1.00am on Tuesday, ending six weeks of fierce clashes over the disputed region that have left hundreds dead.
“I have taken this decision as a result of an in-depth analysis of the military situation,” he said, after Azerbaijani forces made significant gains against Armenia-backed fighters in the region.
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Azerbaijan and Armenia accuse each other of targeting cities outside conflict zones
“This is not a victory but there is not defeat until you consider yourself defeated. We will never consider ourselves defeated and this shall become a new start of an era of our national unity and rebirth,” he said.
The Kremlin and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev later confirmed the news.
“The signed trilateral statement will become a [crucial] point in the settlement of the conflict,” Aliyev said in a televised online meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin said Russian peacekeepers would be deployed along the front line in Nagorno-Karabakh and the corridor between the region and Armenia.
Arayik Harutyunyan, the leader of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, said on Facebook that he gave agreement “to end the war as soon as possible”.
Armenia and Azerbaijan accuse each other of breaking ceasefire
The announcement came after Azerbaijan’s Aliyev said on Sunday that his forces had captured the key town of Shusha in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian officials had said on Monday that fierce fighting was continuing over the town but a senior separatist official said it was “completely out of our control” and that the Azerbaijani forces were threatening the region’s main city Stepanakert.
The fighting had raised fears of a wider regional war, with Turkey supporting its ally Azerbaijan, while Russia has a defence pact with Armenia and a military base there.
Azerbaijan says it has since September 27 retaken much of the land in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that it lost in a 1991-94 war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and forced many more from their homes. Armenia has denied the extent of Azerbaijan’s territorial gains.
Several thousand people are feared killed in the flare-up of the conflict. Three ceasefires have failed in the past six weeks and Azerbaijan’s superior weaponry and battlefield gains have reduced its incentive to seek a lasting peace deal.
Additional reporting by Reuters
